rat fight!

Question
QUESTION: My rat got in a fight with a male rat and he tore her right arm open! he was sniffing her and she started a fight with him. The gash is about a half an inch thick and wide open. When she moves it opens up and you can see the muscle, or something like that underneath. Im really scared and dont know what to do! I can't take her to the vet till tommorow!

ANSWER: Hi Lindsey

I am assuming you mean you cant take the rat to the vet until Monday (you wrote this after midnight)

How is the rats wound today?  I wish I saw this sooner!
Keep it clean of course, but I want to know if it is still bleeding.

Let me know!  I will keep checking the messages to see if you wrote back yet.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks, she seems to be a lot better now. We put neosporin on it and its closed up nicely. She doesn't seem to be bothered by it. Its stopped bleeding but the fur around the wound is matted and bloody. I dont want to wipe it off cuz im afraid of opening up the wound again. Sometimes she squeaks if i pick her up so im trying to avoid holding her.

ANSWER: If your taking her to the vet tomorrow,leave it alone tonight, just dab the neosporin on it gently, but if not...you will need to get that cleaned out and keep it clean so it doesnt turn into a nasty infection.

If she isnt going to the vet, tomorrow you can take some hibicleanse (found at Wallyworld AKA Walmart:) or any drug store) and mix it with warm water, making it sudsy.  Dip a cotton ball in the sudsy water and squeeze it over the rats wounds till the old blood comes off and it looks clean. Dab it dry and inspect it. If it bleeds again this means it needed stitches. I am not sure how the vet will handle this since it will be more than 24 hrs. since the injury and some vets wont stitch it after that, but it depends on what they plan to do. Maybe just cleaning it up and some oral meds ...it depends.

Meanwhile, how did this happen? I assume they aren't cagemates since you said it was a male rat, so I just wondered what happened etc...

Thats scary he hurt her to that degree! Of course,they dont know any better and do what they do out of sheer instinct so you cant hold it against him.   Its still scary though!

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Well i put i put them together to mate, dont worry iv done all my research and am completely ready to take care of her and the babies, and she got scared and attacked him. He bit completely out of self-defense so im not mad at him. Either way, she seems fine now and (against my better judgement) i actually let them interact again today to see if she was still aggressive (i had a squirt bottle at hand in case any fights broke out) and she was actually really friendly! In fact, they have mated 15 times so far and still counting. Im not sure what caused her to attack him that first time but they're getting along great right now. Maybe something just spooked her. She doesn't seem to even notice the wound. She's incredibly hyper!

Answer
Mated 15 times!  LOL  Newlyweds!

I was about to warn you never be as dumb as I was and try to break up a fight on your own.  I did that several years ago when one of my 2.5lb bucks became angry with his brother.  
So much blood....the pain was inexpressible! It was my fault though.

Anyhow, you also dont have to explain to me why your breeding. You probably have seen a few of my threads previously where I have asked others about breeding but here is why: I read something such as this person just buys a random male from random pet store, doesnt do quarantine and brings it home, just plops it in the tank with several girls to breed them just for the heck of it. That drives me crazy because its so irresponsible....and to breed not one but several girls, I cant see how anyone can properly care for and socialize dozens upon dozens of rats.  Its all just bad news, so you may have read me on a rant about that or something. I am NOT against breeding, I just ask for people to be responsible about it: prepared for the absolute worse case scenerio (as gruesome as it sounds) and this way you will have things ready regardless.

That said, how are things today?