What do I do what my rat that died?

Question

I am so upset. For no reason, my favorite female rat just up and died on us. I just fed them and had them out for play time and put them all to bed for the night.  About an hour later I was ready to retire for the night and went to check on the rats and found Jasmine laying right in the middle of the cage with pieces of their bedding all over her. It looked like the other rats were trying to bury her. I cried and so did my children.
We live in an apartment and I cant bury her here. What do I do about her? I don't know who to call. She died about 3 hours ago and I am still in  shock
Any help is appreciated

Andie

Answer
Hi Andie

I am really sorry about your loss. Sudden unexpected death is so hard on rat owners. Its heartbreaking and leaves us wondering what went wrong. We also fear it may be contagious and will pass on to our other rats that housed with  him.

What you can do for peace of mind is for starters, have a necropsy done. You will need to put the little fella in a towel and put him in a box and keep him cold but not frozen.
 You can put him in the refrigerator and keep him but if you freeze him a necropsy cannot be done. Once the body is frozen the tissue samples will be rendered useless and you wont ever find out what happened, which is what I am getting to next.
Anyhow, most vets will do a necropsy for free unless they need to send the tissue samples to pathology and there will be a small fee for that. This will bring you closure as to what contributed to his death and also you will know if what he was contagious. I can ease your mind now by saying that I doubt he was contagious though...it was so sudden it was probably something isolated such as an underlying heart problem.  
Anyhow I am really sorry this happened...
Please feel free to contact me if I can help you any further.