# Best way to help a rat who has lost his cagemate?



## Mattsrats (Feb 24, 2014)

Greetings,

Quinn lost his littermate/brother today to a tumor. (The details are in the health section)

I am bummed about Riley but I have only had them for 10 days so I hadn't gotten too attached to them quite yet with working insane hrs at work. Quinn seems perfectly happy at the moment, giving my hand the full grooming treatment while stopping every so often to boggle.

Aside from holding him a lot, is there anything else I should do to help him? I am wondering how long it will be before he realizes he is all alone. 
He is only 5 weeks old and was much smaller than his brother was so I can't put him in with Skidz and Rico or they would kick his butt. All of the boys are scheduled to be neutered in mid august.

The only place to get males in town is the same pet store that all my boys came from that died from health issues. I stopped by there today to see what they had in case Quinn starts showing signs of depression. They mostly had a couple dozen feeders that were 2x Quinn's size and VERY spooky so I didn't give them much thought. As I was leaving the owner's son said they were getting a large shipment of 4-5 week old weanlings on Monday. If I were to get another one there I would have to go into it knowing that whatever rat I get may have a high mortality rate.

Any ideas?


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## liesel (Feb 13, 2013)

I would keep holding him a lot and giving him attention. If he seems to get depressed though you may have to see about getting another rat. My oldest gal recently lost her cage mate and as much as I gave her special attention and lots of it she got very depressed regardless. I didn't even realize how depressed she truly was until I brought her home a new cage mate and her entire behavior drastically changed. Is there any nearby towns you could possibly go to to get abother rat there perhaps? Another that helped my rat somewhat was I gave her a stuffed animal to cuddle since she didnt have a sister to cuddle anymore. she actually seemed to really like that but maybe that's just her personality and again as much as it helped she still ended up depressed. As long as him living alone is temporary though I think it could work. You really have to judge by his personality. personality . as much as I don't advise I had a lone rat once for over a year and she was completely happy living alone. Again though it's all about giving the lone rats extra attention and lots of it


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## Perocore (Jan 6, 2014)

I believe that once he is 6 weeks old it would be safe to start introducing him to the older rats individually? From what I've been told, adult males accept baby boys pretty well when the baby is under 3 months old. So you could also wait until he's 8 weeks old if you'd want him to grow a bit more. 

Sorry for your loss  Hope the little guy does alright!


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## Isamurat (Jul 27, 2012)

I would get him a same aged friend and then introduce them once they are about 7 weeks old. It does babies a lot of good to have same aged play mates and also minimises the amount of time they spend plaguing the older rats. perhaps see what the young ones are like., a few weeks difference doesn't matter at this age. several months different does. 

Hopefully neutering them will help reduce the risks of illnesses and increase there lifespan. In most cases it does make a positive difference.


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