RatCreature (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ratcreature) wrote2013-02-04 05:03 pm
ratcreature) wrote2013-02-04 05:03 pm
in memory of Oskar
I found Oskar dead in the cage this morning when I wanted to bring him to his wound check appointment. He hadn't been dead long then, still slightly warmer than room temperature and no rigor mortis yet. So I guess his attempts to rejoin the others last night hadn't been a sign of him becoming more active again and healing, but were a desperate last ditch effort for contact on his part.
I still brought him to the vet, to see whether she might be able to tell me what went wrong, but without sending him to a pathologist for an autopsy she could only tell me that the wound itself wasn't infected and that his kidneys felt enlarged. Her best guess was that he either sustained some invisible, internal injury from the fight and eventually died from that, or that antibiotic-resistant bacteria entered through the wound, and caused systemic infection right away rather than wound infection. I decided against an autopsy, which would have cost at least €60, because it's not like knowing for sure would do any good to him now.
This group of brothers just has the worst luck. First Silas, and now Oskar.
Oskar wasn't a cuddly rat, but still friendly, and unlike some of his brothers he never got into the bad habit of pinching me to get my attention or to get me to move a limb or a foot on the bed. He looked really funny when he ran somtimes, because for some reason he kept holding his tail in a curled partial loop when running, rather than carrying it in a straight line trailing behind. It wasn't broken and he could hold it straight with no problem, he just didn't. Unfortunately I have no photo showing that.
It turns out I don't even have many photos of any kind of him, because I haven't taken so many of my rats the last year than previously, and none from the last half year at all. So these are all photos of him as a young rat.
I'm actually not sure whether this is Oskar or Kieran, because they both had the same solid color, only Oskar had a tiny white stripe on his belly, and as baby Kieran wasn't larger than Oskar yet.
Oskar with Kieran. They really liked each other most of the time, the tragic fight from Thursday notwithstanding
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