Still having a rough time

Things have yet to improve here.

Last night Maisie passed away, completing the hat trick of ratty deaths in the last month. Astro is still fighting but the infection from his chin spread to his eyes. He took a turn for the worse recently and lost a lot of weight but he is soldiering on. Everything is healing well, we just need him to stay strong and eat more.

I've not been too well myself either so we are still struggling to keep up with everything here. So continued apologies for lack of updates and slow response times to emails etc.

Apologies

for lack of recent updates. It has just been a horrible few weeks. Quick run down - Skip is gone, Widdle is gone, Susie's lumps are worse, Maisie won't be with us much longer and the vets advised euthanasing Astro. We are still incredibly busy and with everything else going on we're just so behind on everything right now.

We took Astro to a specialist and he has had an operation to remove his abcess. He's doing ok, his weight is stable and he is bright and active but we've had to give him a potentially dangerous antibiotic and he still has pus in his op site. We're back at the vets with him again tomorrow.

So please forgive the lack of blog posts, the hideously out of date homing pages and the even longer than normal response time to homing applications and other emails. Hopefully things will settle down soon!

:(

Shadow is back indoors cos he started scratching himself up again.

Skip is bunged again, two weeks after his last enema. No amount of laxatives seem to be shifting it.

Super Susie Tripod has two lumps but I don't think it's right to put her through having them removed.

Astro has a big lump under his chin. I'm hoping it's an abcess - we're off to the vets soon.

Widdle is also coming to the vets. But he won't be coming home. He has been going downhill for a little while now, particularly over the last few days. This afternoon he has begun having little seizures so I suspect some form of brain tumour.

I'm just exhausted with all the worry and sadness. It's constant at the moment :(

Some Good News

First and foremost I'm delighted to report that Skip had his enema yesterday. All went well and they've flushed him out good and proper!! He's back to his usual norty little self already :)

Secondly, Barney the grumpy single male rat has had a perfect sounding home offer and will be leaving us tomorrow for his new home :D

And finally, Shadow and Kitkat wabbits went outside today for the first time in about 3 months. Here's some pics of them enjoying the sunshine!

Worrying

Urgh I am just exhausted at the moment from so much worrying. I have had months of worrying about Shadow, I am just done worrying about Erika (with a sad outcome), I am worring about Mollie squirrel (she's losing weight, very quiet, not eating much just as she was a year ago) and well I'm almost constantly worrying about Skip. I guess it has come to a head tonight because Skip is bunged again. It has only been two weeks since his last enema but he hasn't really been quite right since. I don't think they entirely unblocked him to be honest. So I don't want to leave him til Monday which means praying the vets can fit him in tomorrow. I can't describe how horrid I feel tonight, I just adore him so much :(

Erika

Erika degu has left us today :(

She went to the vets a few weeks back cos she was losing weight. I thought it was to do with her teeth and when they turned out to be overgrown it appeared I was right. Initially she seemed to do better after her teeth were seen to but in the last few days the weight has suddenly just fallen off her and she ended up like a walking skeleton. It was obvious her time had come but she didn't appear to be suffering so we decided to let nature take its course unless she looked to be in any pain. And then last night it was apparent she didn't have long. I sat with her for a while, kissing her and talking to her. Then I made her a nest and made her comfortable. To my surprise she was still with us this morning but slipped away some time this morning.

Erika was very special to me. She was the most confident of our degus and would climb out of the door and try to escape and get up to mischief at any opportunity. She seemed to genuinely like us and would happily sit on my shoulder. She will be very much missed.

Bubbles

aka babies ;)

Got them out and weighed and photographed them again. Most are doing well but the 4 who had been stolen by Akuti are still flagging behind the others. She had stolen them again today and all but 1 baby was in her nest. If she persists I might have to think about separating her and her babies out so that all the babies get a fair chance to feed.

Anyway here are some new piccies