Rat Injury

Question
Dear Sandra,
I hope you can offer me some advice about my pet rat Noel.  Yesterday he was having playtime with his cagemate as usual, when he came and sat on my lap I noticed some blood.  When I looked at his tummy I was horrified to find a very deep cut about an inch long that actually went into his muscle tissue.  I have no idea how this happened, I've looked through the room from top to bottom and can't find anything sharp, I'm now wondering if it was the result of a fight between the 2 rats (although the wound seemed too severe to be inflicted by claws).  Anyway, I immediately took him to the emergency vetinary clinic where he was put under anesthetic and stitched up.  The vet at first thought the wound had gone deeper and said he might get peretinitis but luckily it had not gone beyond the muscle tissue so the risk of this is hopefully less.  He is now home, I am keeping him seperate from his cagemate Terrence as when I let them out together Terrence imediately went for the stitches and I think he was trying to pull them out.  Terrence also made some strange noises when sniffing Noel- perhaps this is because Noel smelt different after being at the vets overnight, I'm not sure..
Noel is now on Baytril, I'm hoping this will prevent infections.
I was wondering if you knew how long ot might take for the wound to heal?  I don't want to keep him seperate from his friend for long.  Also, if rats are seperated for a while do they stop recognising eachother?  
I looked at where Noel had been sleeping earlier and noticed there was a little blood and some strange sticky plasticy stuff- do you know if this might be something used in surgery? I'm a bit concerned that I found it in the bedding.  The stitches look ok except at the bottom it is a bit red- perhaps this is where the blood/ plasticy stuff came from..
Any advice you could offer would be much appreciated.
Many thanks,
Suzy

Answer
Hi


I am sorry this happened!!  Do the boys usually get along ok ??  You dont want to keep them apart long though and I am going to go out on a limb here and say that Terrence was only going to sniff the stitches, rats usually dont go after the other rats surgical site unless they are aggressive and are fighting.  How old are the boys?  Keeping them apart can stress out both rats, so I would let them see each other and play every day during supervised play.   The stitches should heal in about 3 to 4 days. They should have used internal stitches and surgical glue. Sounds like they used the glue, which is what you probably saw on the bedding.

Lift up the bedding/litter. He should not be on it with a  wound like this.  Lay down fleece, tee shirt material or paper towels (white) because the bedding can really contaminate the wound and get it in etc...   keep it all super clean, changing out soiled paper towels the second you notice it.  Sounds like a pain, but you dont want infection even while he is on baytril, a different organism can breed that can get past the baytril so its best to be careful.

Do you have a good exotic vet for them?