# 911 emergency...Lone orphan



## mdurks17 (Feb 17, 2010)

Hey all. A friend recently had her beloved rat pass due to complications in birthing, but not before squeezing out a lone pup and raising it for (my guess) a week. I believe it had problems delivering the rest of the liter or had an infection unfortunately : /. I had previously raised 4 mice to maturity from the time their eyes were closed, so she asked me to try and save the little guy. I accepted and have been feeding him using a "kitten milk" formula I picked up at stop and shop through an oral syringe about 3x a day. I keep him in a large rubbermaid bin with a pair of boxer shorts and stuffed Simba doll and put a heater in my room to help him keep warm. He eats, although he's fussy, unfortunately I've noticed that he's gone from 15g to 14g to 13g today...He pees normally when I stimulate him to go after feeding, and he seems active in the rubbermaid container (to an extent), however I note that when I'm holding him his back legs seem weak and he sometimes struggles to right himself if he rolls over. He is about 4" long head to tail. I've got some pics attached so you can see what he looks like (I've no idea his age, can anyone help?). I'm confident I can raise him to maturity once his eyes open, unfortunately it seems that can't happen soon enough. Any help or support you can give is appreciated : /

Matt


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## Jaguar (Nov 15, 2009)

You should be feeding him once every two or three hours. I've heard of success with Esbilac puppy milk or human soy formula. I'm not sure about kitten milk but it should be good. If he is not urinating he may be dehydrated.Keep him warm and watch him - there's really not much else you can do, but do what you can. Hope he does alright.

_Weigh the baby. Divide the weight by two to get the number of ccs to feed. For example, if the baby weighs 6 grams, you will feed .3 cc. If the baby weighs 7.7 grams, you will feed .38 cc. Continue to weigh daily and keep records. A decrease in weight may occur until the baby is established on the formula. After that, there should be a steady increase in weight. _

http://www.rmca.org/Articles/orphans.htm


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## AvaAdoreSmashing (Dec 31, 2009)

Yeah you gotta try and feed him every threeish hours. He's really cute


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## AMJ087 (Aug 27, 2008)

I agree, babye rats need to be fed much fore then 2-3 times a day. Increase feedings.


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