Trying to understand my rats death...

Question
My rat, Peanut died tonight, which wasn't completely unexpected as we have been struggling with abdominal tumors for many months, including two unsuccessful surgeries...cry...

What confuses me is while he was in the down hill process of dying his eyes bulged out and he would not close them, even when they were touched. He had, for the most part stopped moving when this happened, and death occurred approx. 30 minutes later. We kept putting saline drops on them, but we were wondering if this meant he was in a coma, or what exactly was going on...? It was so alarming, we had never seen that happen before.  I have looked online, but only find references to eye injuries.  Is this a normal occurrence during a rat death?  I'm no expert on it, having only had a total of three rat deaths, but that did not happen with the other two.

Answer
Hi Carrie

I am really sorry for your loss!


As for his eyes, this is not a normal thing to occur during death, but there are so many things that can and do happen that cannot be explained without a necropsy.

  He may have had a stroke and could not control the muscles to his eyes which may explain why he couldn't close them.