# Depressed rat :(



## BadgeBadge (May 2, 2012)

Recently my rat Badger died, and after a long life of almost 5 years she was a prominent character in the cage. She used to be Lilly's sleeping mate, who is now really depressed. She just constantly sleeps, and has polyphorin around one of her eyes. She's happy once I get her out, but I can't have her out 24 hours a day even if I wanted to  She does have a cagemate, but Snowflake likes to sleep at the top of the cage and Lilly at the bottom. 

The problem is, all my old ones are now gone and went with a few months of each other, but Lilly is still going strong and I think she's missing them all. I don't want her to lose her to depression. I've been looking around for rescue rats to take in for her company (most of my rats tend to be rescues) but there isn't any in my area at the moment. I'm getting a few pups soon, but I don't like the idea of Lilly being depressed for a month. 

Any ideas? 

~sorry if this thread appears twice, it seems to crash me every time I press post?~


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## chrisd (Aug 25, 2011)

First of all a rat living until five years old is nigh on a miracle! Well done for caring for her.

Rats can go into shock after the loss of a cage mate and do often recover after a while. How well do your two remaining rats get on? Do they socialize when they are not sleeping?

Only you can judge whether your rat needs another companion besides the one she already has. But if she has one then she should hopefully be alright until your new kits arrive. Just monitor her progress and if she gets worse then I would think about travelling to get a new cage mate or even resorting to Gumtree


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## BadgeBadge (May 2, 2012)

Thanks  Yeah, she was a fighter, have had her almost a quarter of my life so i was very attached to her. 

Luckily Lilly is bonding better with Snowflake now, they're cuddled up together as I write so i'm happier  They tend to focus more on me separately when they come out for freeranging but it looks like their relationship is improving. 

Ah, I'm a bit of a sucker for "rescuing" ratties off of gumtree/preloved etc, most of my rats have been rescues, I can't bear seeing adverts of them on their own or crammed into tiny cages


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