Dilemma

I'm wondering what I should do for the best now little Oscar has gone.
Louie is now on his own, but I have been making a lot of fuss over him and
letting him out for extra long times. You see, Louie is constantly on and
off anti-biotics for respiratory problems and always seems to be snuffly.
We have tried everything, even the baytril-doxy combination and nothing
seems to work. If I buy another rat for company for him, I fear this one
will just catch the sniffles. Would I be best keeping him alone and
carrying on giving him lots of attention? I am in during the day so he
wouldn't be alone much, but I know rats need other ratty company to be
truely happy, but then I don't want to buy another rat for him to get ill
too. Another problem is that Louie is a rescue rat who was very badly
treated by his first owners, and is still very timid. A year along and he
is still even a little timid of me, although he actually came to me last
night when I called him up onto the chair - a first! Maybe he will be
willing to get closer to humans now he is alone. In the future I intend on
buying an extra-large cage and keeping more than two rats so this problem is
less likely to encounter - plus the more rats the merrier! Can I ask what
you would do?

Tracey

Hi Tracey,
Firstly, I am taking Beau to our vet on Saturday,because like Louie he has
been on and off medication and is always 'snuffly' so now our vet is going
to give him a long lasting steroid based injection to see if that works - if
it does i will let you know and it may also help Louie.About getting a
friend for him - his age and history will play a great part as to whether he
will accept any other rats into his home.It would be a great shame for him
to live out his life on his own so my personal choice would be to go with
babies (two or three).We have found that older rats are just so interested
in babies that they just can't stay away although you would have to watch
out for bullying when they are so much smaller than Louie.Good Luck!
"Tracey" <talton RemoveThis @members.v21.co.uk> wrote in message
news:3f291d98@news.greennet.net...
> I'm wondering what I should do for the best now little Oscar has gone.
> Louie is now on his own, but I have been making a lot of fuss over him and
> letting him out for extra long times. You see, Louie is constantly on and
> off anti-biotics for respiratory problems and always seems to be snuffly.
> We have tried everything, even the baytril-doxy combination and nothing
> seems to work. If I buy another rat for company for him, I fear this one
> will just catch the sniffles. Would I be best keeping him alone and
> carrying on giving him lots of attention? I am in during the day so he
> wouldn't be alone much, but I know rats need other ratty company to be
> truely happy, but then I don't want to buy another rat for him to get ill
> too. Another problem is that Louie is a rescue rat who was very badly
> treated by his first owners, and is still very timid. A year along and he
> is still even a little timid of me, although he actually came to me last
> night when I called him up onto the chair - a first! Maybe he will be
> willing to get closer to humans now he is alone. In the future I intend
on
> buying an extra-large cage and keeping more than two rats so this problem
is
> less likely to encounter - plus the more rats the merrier! Can I ask what
> you would do?
>
> Tracey
>
>