Valedictions Ragamuffin

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Thanatos has visited again, making it three posts in a row I've had to refer to his work. Last night I had a few post work drinks with Andrzej, an old friend whom I hadn't had much of for the better part of ten years. On the way to The King of Tonga we stopped over at my place and of course the opportunity arose to meet the rabbits and rats.

Except Ragamuffin seemed to be in a very deep sleep indeed.



Ragamuffin and Scoundrel were 'rescue rats' that caseopaya and I picked up over a year ago. Muffin was in a bit of a rough state; he had a mite infestation which had caused the loss of the tips of his ears, and his skin was quite scaly; he was also terribly nervous. We applied the necessary spray, brushed him regularly and after a while he started he turned quite friendly; and quite large - at one point he weighed in at over 600g, resulting in a fairly strict diet of fruit and vegetables.

He hadn't been terribly active recently with his strength declining somewhat and requiring some anti-arthritis injections, although I must say I thought he still had at least quite a few months in him; so it's all a bit of a surprise. I'll remember this little guy for his extremely gentle demeanor and socialbility. Sleep soundly my little friend.

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Because 'muffin was a rescue rat we're not exactly sure how old he and Scoundrel are. We think 'muffin was a year and Scoundrel was six months when we got them. So it would put his demise at just over two years, which is within the normal range (2 to 3 years) but still the earlies for the one's we've had. A very rough rule of thumb is to use 30 years = 1 year within the normal range. Of course, it gets rather out of whack at the extremes; the oldest pet rat lived to over seven!

Are they waving good-bye to the rest of us while trotting off to Harvard, Yale, or Oxbridge? ;)

*nods* That's right :)