I have come to the decision that because of a couple of twerps from IN, I am not going to lock my blog. I want to share with the rat community what I have found, what we discover and too many studies are kept private. I do this for the good of rats everywhere and will not let some little twerp keep me from sharing this information. However, I will be posting their info on a spearate blog. I am going to be moving postings and the like, so this is just for the study and we have a separate Social Rats blog for our RIPs and for updates on our ratteries and rescues. The new blog address is: Social Rats Updates and News
Tami
Social Rats Adoption and Rescue
Original posting:
Someone has been using the data from the Social Rats study claiming it to be their own, so we will be closing this blog to the public. I will be setting something up so that those interested may read it, but will not be leaving it open to the public. We put a lot of work into this study and I will NOT have someone taking credit for our hard work.
Tami
Social Rats Adoption and Rescue
Friday, May 28, 2010
May and June updates
I know I have been trying to get the updates up, but have been busy. I wanted to do the updates before I get into more RIP postings, as I have more to do yet. Thus far, since this study began, the only rat to pass away that was from our lines, has been Apple, but that was expected. Since March, when I started this, it has been rescue after rescue that has passed, other than some babies that we have lost, but I will explain those.
Our girls are doing well and we have breed Marie to Z and those babies are all doing very well. We still have some of them up for adoption. THis was an experimental litter to see if 2 rats with what is referred to as the "High White" gene, causing various blazes, bred together, on a soy free diet, would come upw ith mega colon, the major fear of breeders who work with high white. Marie had 19 babies, huge litter, we lost one within 24 hours, all of the rest of her babies survived without an issue. We had no runts, all grew at the same rate without a foster mom to help her. She did wonderfully. We did have a virus that went through our rattery back in March, around the time that Marie had her babies, which caused us to lose Squeaka's babies. She birthed 3 of them and absored the rest. Those who were born were stillborn, so the litter died before birth.
We also bred Avi, who is an odd eye, high white tan girl with Tanner, who carries the high white gene, but does not display it. Again, this litter should have been at a high risk of mega colon, but no issues with them either. While this does not prove that a soy free diet will prevent mega colon, it is a good sign in that direction. The only way to prove it is to breed a rat that has had issues with mego colon in the past, but in that case we are also talking about a rat that most likely exposed to soy, which would affect the results. So we will continue to monitor all at risk litters for this condition in the future.
We have also discovered that the soy free diet has increased our litter sizes as well. While the average litter size for a rat is usually 12, all litters born of our rats, soy free for some time, have been 15+.
Donna has had her second litter, a tan/fawn top ear/dumbo mixed litter. Again she was bred with Tanner and had a successful birth. So successful, in fact, that I did not realize that she had given birth right away. Last time she gave birth at 23 days, so the day of transport, May 12th, we were going to move her out of the colony cage when we got back, assuming we still had 2 days before she gave birth. This time around she delivered right at 21 days, so we did end up with some injured from other females trying to steal babies.
Baby #1 had some skin scraped off the top of his head. We lost him (I did not sex them, I tend to refer to unsexed babies as he)
Baby #2 had some skin scraped off of her back. We were concerned about infection, but waited to see if we saw anything. She was just a newborn and though we COULD treat with amoxicillin and neosporin, I wanted to let her get bigger. Come to find out, what I thought was infection developing was actualy scar tissue and she is almost completely healed up, with a tiny scab on her back yet. (I have since sexed this baby and found it to be a girl)
Baby #3 had injuries to his left front leg. I was worried with this little guy that we were going to lose his leg. Our main concern is that a blood vessel had been severed, however it had only been pinched. He recovered without incident and now I can not tell which one he is. I only know that he is a tan one. (he was unsexed)
So healing without infection has definitely improved.
We did have a scare with Simi. She got 3 abscesses on her back from a cagemate, naughty little Taffy as I later discovered when trying to return her to that cage. She also had some lumps on her underside. I feared the worst, of course, believing that it would be cancer. Thankfully, as the abscesses healed up, without incident or return, the swelling went down as well. The lumps were swollen glands fighting the infection. This is good news, meaning that her immune system is fully functioning. I have dealt with abscesses before, but when my rats were on soy, the glands never swelled up. This means that their immune systems are now fully functioning, where before they were not. I also did not treat with antibiotics, as I wanted to monitor to see if she needed them. Normally I would recommend amoxicillin when treating an abscess, but I wanted to see if her body would fight the infection on it's own, which it did.
Respiratory issues have been quite low, although we did lose a few to respitory issues and complications that came with them. Shilo, who had already lost 2 litter mates to issues (I believe that there was something wrong with the litter and all babies from that litter have been adopted out to pet only homes after the first death in litter we had) relating to respiratory issues.
Shilo had fought the good fight, but even with amoxicillin, Baytril and Lasix, it was not enough for her. Even after her respiratory issues cleared, she was too weak to keep fighting. Her lungs were clear and her breathing, a bit fast, otherwise was fine. She had lost too much weight and dispite my best efforts, I could not get her to gaint he weight back. This includes using Boost plus (which does have soy in it, but minimal compared to more health shakes) and giving baby food twice a day. She was eating, and she had friends, but she was not putting on the weight. Mindy, a rescue that had been with us a while went the same route. She started with resp issues, but lost so much weight fighting it, that I ended up putting her to sleep. I could see the same, no coming back from illness, in her as well.
The only litters we have lost were due to the virus and we have had little issues with infertility. The only ones that did have issue were those who came from breeders who do use soy. We also have not had any small litters OR small babies, all babies have grown at an appropriate rate.
I have discovered an interesting fact. The girls who are raised soy free from pregnancy on are hitting their first heat later in life. THis is good news as well as this tells us that their clocks are slowing down. By not going into their first heat until 8-12 weeks of age, it does vary from girl to girl, they will be able to breed longer and will live longer after menopause.
Thus far, we have not seen any signs of cancer in any of our girls and my oldest, at the moment, is Taffy, who is about 18 months old now. We may see signs of cancer in her in the future if we did not get her off of the soy soon enough.
However, I do have some interesting news that we are trying to get a statement from this particular pet owner. We came across someone who adopted from us to replace a rat that she lost. According to what I have been told she purchased the rats at a young age from a pet store and had them on a soy free diet. The rat that she replaced passed away in her sleep, from what I understand, at the age of 6 years old. Her cagemate and litter mate is still going strong at 6 years old. That is AMAZING news and I will post her story on here as soon as I hear back from Rebecca, who was the one who spoke with her and adopted to her.
So, what we have so far, is that going soy free has made a major difference so far in our rats. THey have more energy, even have some of the boys using wheels now. Olefat and lazy Tanner is starting to use one as well, more or less. He climbs in it, walks 10 feet and gets back out, but at least he is trying. Sugar, our tailless, is starting to get mroe used to using one as well. We just got a shipment of wheels recently, so we are able to provide them to more of the rats now. Some of the cages I have to pull apart to put the wheels in, but we will be doing that in the near future to give everyone a wheel to use. We are finding less illnesses. We do have sneezing, but that is usually from running the vacuum or the AC can set it off pretty easily as well.
Have more RIPs to do this weekend, and will be doing a large one for Memorial Day as well, which I will be working on through the weekend to remember all of those who pass on.
Tami
Social Rats Adoption and Rescue
Our girls are doing well and we have breed Marie to Z and those babies are all doing very well. We still have some of them up for adoption. THis was an experimental litter to see if 2 rats with what is referred to as the "High White" gene, causing various blazes, bred together, on a soy free diet, would come upw ith mega colon, the major fear of breeders who work with high white. Marie had 19 babies, huge litter, we lost one within 24 hours, all of the rest of her babies survived without an issue. We had no runts, all grew at the same rate without a foster mom to help her. She did wonderfully. We did have a virus that went through our rattery back in March, around the time that Marie had her babies, which caused us to lose Squeaka's babies. She birthed 3 of them and absored the rest. Those who were born were stillborn, so the litter died before birth.
We also bred Avi, who is an odd eye, high white tan girl with Tanner, who carries the high white gene, but does not display it. Again, this litter should have been at a high risk of mega colon, but no issues with them either. While this does not prove that a soy free diet will prevent mega colon, it is a good sign in that direction. The only way to prove it is to breed a rat that has had issues with mego colon in the past, but in that case we are also talking about a rat that most likely exposed to soy, which would affect the results. So we will continue to monitor all at risk litters for this condition in the future.
We have also discovered that the soy free diet has increased our litter sizes as well. While the average litter size for a rat is usually 12, all litters born of our rats, soy free for some time, have been 15+.
Donna has had her second litter, a tan/fawn top ear/dumbo mixed litter. Again she was bred with Tanner and had a successful birth. So successful, in fact, that I did not realize that she had given birth right away. Last time she gave birth at 23 days, so the day of transport, May 12th, we were going to move her out of the colony cage when we got back, assuming we still had 2 days before she gave birth. This time around she delivered right at 21 days, so we did end up with some injured from other females trying to steal babies.
Baby #1 had some skin scraped off the top of his head. We lost him (I did not sex them, I tend to refer to unsexed babies as he)
Baby #2 had some skin scraped off of her back. We were concerned about infection, but waited to see if we saw anything. She was just a newborn and though we COULD treat with amoxicillin and neosporin, I wanted to let her get bigger. Come to find out, what I thought was infection developing was actualy scar tissue and she is almost completely healed up, with a tiny scab on her back yet. (I have since sexed this baby and found it to be a girl)
Baby #3 had injuries to his left front leg. I was worried with this little guy that we were going to lose his leg. Our main concern is that a blood vessel had been severed, however it had only been pinched. He recovered without incident and now I can not tell which one he is. I only know that he is a tan one. (he was unsexed)
So healing without infection has definitely improved.
We did have a scare with Simi. She got 3 abscesses on her back from a cagemate, naughty little Taffy as I later discovered when trying to return her to that cage. She also had some lumps on her underside. I feared the worst, of course, believing that it would be cancer. Thankfully, as the abscesses healed up, without incident or return, the swelling went down as well. The lumps were swollen glands fighting the infection. This is good news, meaning that her immune system is fully functioning. I have dealt with abscesses before, but when my rats were on soy, the glands never swelled up. This means that their immune systems are now fully functioning, where before they were not. I also did not treat with antibiotics, as I wanted to monitor to see if she needed them. Normally I would recommend amoxicillin when treating an abscess, but I wanted to see if her body would fight the infection on it's own, which it did.
Respiratory issues have been quite low, although we did lose a few to respitory issues and complications that came with them. Shilo, who had already lost 2 litter mates to issues (I believe that there was something wrong with the litter and all babies from that litter have been adopted out to pet only homes after the first death in litter we had) relating to respiratory issues.
Shilo had fought the good fight, but even with amoxicillin, Baytril and Lasix, it was not enough for her. Even after her respiratory issues cleared, she was too weak to keep fighting. Her lungs were clear and her breathing, a bit fast, otherwise was fine. She had lost too much weight and dispite my best efforts, I could not get her to gaint he weight back. This includes using Boost plus (which does have soy in it, but minimal compared to more health shakes) and giving baby food twice a day. She was eating, and she had friends, but she was not putting on the weight. Mindy, a rescue that had been with us a while went the same route. She started with resp issues, but lost so much weight fighting it, that I ended up putting her to sleep. I could see the same, no coming back from illness, in her as well.
The only litters we have lost were due to the virus and we have had little issues with infertility. The only ones that did have issue were those who came from breeders who do use soy. We also have not had any small litters OR small babies, all babies have grown at an appropriate rate.
I have discovered an interesting fact. The girls who are raised soy free from pregnancy on are hitting their first heat later in life. THis is good news as well as this tells us that their clocks are slowing down. By not going into their first heat until 8-12 weeks of age, it does vary from girl to girl, they will be able to breed longer and will live longer after menopause.
Thus far, we have not seen any signs of cancer in any of our girls and my oldest, at the moment, is Taffy, who is about 18 months old now. We may see signs of cancer in her in the future if we did not get her off of the soy soon enough.
However, I do have some interesting news that we are trying to get a statement from this particular pet owner. We came across someone who adopted from us to replace a rat that she lost. According to what I have been told she purchased the rats at a young age from a pet store and had them on a soy free diet. The rat that she replaced passed away in her sleep, from what I understand, at the age of 6 years old. Her cagemate and litter mate is still going strong at 6 years old. That is AMAZING news and I will post her story on here as soon as I hear back from Rebecca, who was the one who spoke with her and adopted to her.
So, what we have so far, is that going soy free has made a major difference so far in our rats. THey have more energy, even have some of the boys using wheels now. Olefat and lazy Tanner is starting to use one as well, more or less. He climbs in it, walks 10 feet and gets back out, but at least he is trying. Sugar, our tailless, is starting to get mroe used to using one as well. We just got a shipment of wheels recently, so we are able to provide them to more of the rats now. Some of the cages I have to pull apart to put the wheels in, but we will be doing that in the near future to give everyone a wheel to use. We are finding less illnesses. We do have sneezing, but that is usually from running the vacuum or the AC can set it off pretty easily as well.
Have more RIPs to do this weekend, and will be doing a large one for Memorial Day as well, which I will be working on through the weekend to remember all of those who pass on.
Tami
Social Rats Adoption and Rescue
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