My friend's rat, Nimh, is a little under the weather at the moment. We're trying to get her into a vet today to find out what we can do. She's currently exhibiting signs of a Mycoplasma related illness, including gasping, laboured breathing, rattling and chattering sounds when she breathes. Hopefully the vet will be able to prescribe the right medications for her to ward it off.


Myco is a common illness among rats. Every rat has it, however some rats have a greater resistance than others. Daz and Ezri come from a litter with fantastic resistance. I have never heard them sneeze and their breathing is perfect. Nimh however has always had a few issues with sniffles and the like. It is important that if your rat shows signs of the illness that you see a vet, as more serious cases can lead to pneumonia and death. Prolonged illness will leave the rat with scarring along its respiratory tract. 


Hopefully our vet visit will be positive, and Nimh will have a good recovery from this bout of Myco. I'll keep you updated!

This is just a picture I took the other day of Dax enjoying her nap time in her tube. Send me links you your cute things sleeping!

I also found this website: www.cutethingsfallingasleep.org
If you like cute things (in particular, babies and kittens), this is a good place to get your daily quota of 'aww!'

When rats are introduced, it's not uncommon for them to stand on their hind legs and stare each other down before boxing a little to decide on who is the boss. What is uncommon, however, is for it to last quite as long as this!

This video is pretty cute :) It's perfectly fine for them to assert their dominance. Just remember, when things get a bit rough and turn into an all out scuffle, have a towel ready to throw on the main offender to separate the fight and calm them down, so you can try again later. NEVER break up a fight with your bare hands, it's likely you will get bitten.

People don't often share their unusual toys and hidey holes for their pet rats, so I thought I'd start the ball rolling. My rats adored a plastic watering can when they were small enough to fit in there. Sometimes both Dax and Ezri would ram themselves in there (how they managed I'll never know). Do your rats like anything a little bit random?

I think today I'll share with you a handy resource for training your fuzzies. As mentioned in my tricks section, a guy named Paul (aka oPuPo on YouTube) has a library of videos he created with his gorgeous rats doing all sorts of cute and wonderful things. Not only is it entertaining but you can learn something along the way!

This is the official first post of Greenstone Rodents. I'd like to welcome you to the website and I hope you can stay a while, and maybe take something with you!


Pleased to meet you :)


Nadine xoxo