grieving rats

Question
Hi, my wife and I have had rats for several years now.

After our old rats passed away 2 years ago we brought 4 males from a local pet superstore here in the uk.

Throughout their lives they've had on and off medical problems, and sadly last week 2 of our boys passed away in one day. One we suspected was going to pass as he's always been quite sickly, but a loveable little sole none the less. The other that passed was our "alpha" rat, I.e. the strongest and smartest of the 4, he appeared to have had a stroke in the night as we found him the next morning unable to move his hind quarters and he passed away about an hour later in my arms. Closely followed by his sickly little brother.

Later that day my wife and I stripped their cage down disinfected everything and removed all the soft materials that could retain sent marking.

We've been trying to play with the 2 remaining boys as much as possibly, but unhelpfully I've come down with some sort of cold/virus and so have tried to stay away from the boys for fears of making them sick.

However I went down to see them tonight and our remaining pink eye was simply sat rocking back and forth, when he eventually did move it was to the corner where our alpha had been found. I went back to see him later on and openned the cage and he nearly flung himself into my arms, and was furiously grinding his teeth. I don't know if this is simply because he's lonely (even though he still has a brother in the cage) or because he wants to go looking for his brothers?

The final rat is the big lump of the cage, easily the heavist and possibly "slowest" rat we have. He doesn't seem as obviously depressed as our pink eye, but he too has come running up to the door way tonight to see me, again I'm not sure if this is because he's lonely or simply hungry.

Is there anything we can do to help them through this mourning process? I was considering making their cage smaller - it's currently 6 feet tall x 2.5 x 1.5 feet (approx) I could simply remove the top section and make the cage 3 feet tall, but I don't know if this would add extra stress.

Any advice would be gratefully received as I really don't want to loose my 2 remaining boys to broken hearts.

Answer
I am so sorry for the delay. I had food poisoning and it was so bad I had to have an ambulance come to get me. It was THAT severe. I swear I thought I was having a heart attack!!  So, this has of course set me back days with questions coming in left and right and I am trying to get to them as fast as I can.

I am sorry for your loss. I am hoping things have calmed down.  It sounded like the pink eyed rat had some sort of panic attack?  Is he ok? Is he ill now?

I would not touch the cage. It would indeed stress them.  Did they view the body of their cagemate once he passed?  This is always good to do for closure.  Even with dogs and cats.

Last week after returning from a boat show I had to work at (I am with the Coast guard Aux) I came home only to find that our 15 yr old male pug had passed away.  He was very old and we knew he could just pass in his sleep even if he wasnt sick....and that was the day he chose to leave us. We have a Boxer that, although was much larger than the pug, she was careful around him knowing he was a fragile old man and very protective of him.  When he died we let her see his body. This seemed to disturb her at first...she walked into the bedroom where his body was (the pug adopted the corner of the closet as his sleeping place 2 weeks before his death...it was like he knew he was going to die and wanted to die in a place dark and quiet :(   So anyhow, the boxer, at first, would not go near his body. We were all sitting around the dogs remains sobbing of course which  probably didn't help matters with the boxer, and she began to sniff him like crazy, but backed up   out of the room and sat outside the door way...she started to shake a little like she was cold. She bowed her head and walked away.  When my father took the pug in his arms wrapped in a blanket (they were taking his body to the Er Vets so they could take care of his remains and have him cremated# the boxer jumped up at my dad trying to get the Pug from him. It was so sad.  When they drove off, the boxer went into the bedroom to the spot where the Pug was laying and she sat down and just sat there very quiet for a few minutes.  All of a sudden there was a bone chilling howl coming from the room....and sound I never heard before coming from her.  I do believe she was sobbing or perhaps yelling or some type of distress cry. She started to whimper as if she was injured and finally stopped, coming out of the room and coming near me, putting her paws on my lap. She is so big compared to me and knows she cant get on the couch or love seat.  Long story longer, she did not eat for a few days and had also thrown up twice...we were told she was fine and it was all due to stress from grief.

With rats, they stress out too but the stress can hinder their immune system and they can become ill.  Often this happens and the Vet #who is usually not up to par on rat care#  thinks the rat caught something from the deceased rat #till he is reminded the rat had heart disease...duh!!#

What you can do is pay alot of attention to them....and they have each other, which is good. When my last rat that died was all alone, he only lived for a month and fell ill.  It was his heart though, but he was stressed after my second to last rat passed. I could not go and buy another rat for Santana, as he was a bit ornery, even for a 2.5 year old male....and I lost him at the age of 2 years, 8 months.  My oldest rat died a month before he did at the age of 4 years, 3 weeks. The oldest rat I have  ever....  so I found myself with NO rats and I was, to say the least, very bummed.  Guess what?  A week after losing Santana, and being so bummed out because I had no rats at all....guess who was one of the first cases of swine flu in my city back in North Carolina #I have since moved to southern Florida)  Yep! I had the swine flu, or should I say, the H1-N1!  I ended up in the hospital for a few days with pneumonia in both lungs and I NEVER get that sick. Ever!  I blame stress from losing all of my rats over the past few months!  I adopted three baby boys in July so there was a  happy ending.

Anyhow since so much time has passed since you first wrote, I should see how things are. Sorry for the short novel!! Hopefully you have not fallen asleep!!