RAT WAS BITTEN

Question
Today i was introducing my rat squirt to a new rat and squirt bite the new rat in the back of the neck and by the brain(thats what the pet store owner said)
do you have any advice on how to treat it.


Answer
Your question does not have enough details for me to properly answer it. I will do the best I can with the information that you have provided. I don't even know if Squirt is a male or female to answer your question to the best of my ability.

It sounds like you are saying that you took your rat into the pet store to introduce it to another rat? Did they actually let you put your rat in a tank of rats at the store? That was not a good idea on anyone's part. Did you or anyone else in the store actually see the attack happen? Did you report it right away, if you were left alone to do the introduction process? Had you left the store and they phoned you at home to tell you this? The reason I ask so many questions is that I am trying to understand if they are conveniently blaming you for an attack that may have happened between their own rats after you left the store, and Squirt had nothing to do with it. Putting a strange rat in with a bunch of established males or females can cause tension among them and they will fight to try and reestablish dominance.

Putting all that aside, and if Squirt really did attack and injure another rat it means the intro was not done slowly and carefully enough. It can take weeks for proper intros to go smoothly. In this case you should buy the rat from the store and take the responsibility to care for the injury.

If the bite was severe with massive blood loss, severing the spinal cord, or biting through the skull into the brain, the other rat would be dead by now. If he is still alive I am hoping that he has already been seen by a vet and the vet would have given them post-injury instructions and antibiotics to prevent infection. The skin may even need to be stitched to heal properly. If they/you are unable to get the rat to the vet then it is just a matter of waiting and watching and hoping that the rat survives the injury long-term. He will heal quickly if there are no complications.

There really isn't much you can do without a vet's help. Trying to bandage the wound or putting an ointment on it would cause the rat to do further injury to itself in it's attempt to remove these things.

You never said if the injured rat was acting normally, or if his behavior was out of sorts. I could better help you if I knew how he was feeling.

spazrats
http://spazrats.tripod.com