We lost Gabby today. She was our only female rat. We aren’t sure how or why it happened. We can only guess. I’d been noticing she wasn’t eating much the past couple of weeks. We’ve all noted she was smaller than the others. And she had a lump on her armpit that looked like it could be a tumor. So all indication is that she was sick and it was her time.

On the other hand, and this may or may not be related, she was integrated into the big cage with the boys last night. We were still “discussing” what we would do with any children that resulted. Pat wanted to sell them to the pet store, I wanted to find them all warm, loving homes. Like I said, we were “discussing”. Either way I was going to pay to have her spayed out of my tax return in the spring. That way she’d only have a couple of litters and then we wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore.

Needless to say, she passed before we had to worry about it at all.

The other rats were good with her. They were sweet and gentle, not at all rough or mean. She didn’t have a mark on her. So there is no indication that she was hurt by the male rats in any way.

So I don’t think that her being in the bog cage resulted in her death. I really think it was the tumor. But we’ll never know.