This is a bladder stone removed from Phoebe. The ruler shows centimetres, and the coin is ten pence for scale.

Fetcher's X ray

This is an X ray taken of my Fetcher, to make sure he had no bladder or kidney stones or crystals. As you can see, he didn't, but he did have some shadowing on his lungs which indicated low level pneumonia.

Buck Castration

Back in November 2004 I decided to have Trio castrated, these are photos of the actual surgery:

This is Trio in the vet's knockdown box, anaesthetic gas is piped in through the tube towards the back. Not all vets have these, but in my opinion it's a much nicer way of giving anaesthetic.

Once Trio was asleep, he was taken out of the box and put tummy side up on the operating table, and a mask was put over his face to continue administration of anaesthetic. Here you can also see his abscess which was removed after his castration.

The scrotum is thoroughly cleaned, and the sac is gently squeezed to encourage the testicles to descend.

One incision is made in the scrotum, a testicle is squeezed through, removed, and the rmainind tubes are tied off on each other meaning there is no need for internal stitches which sometimes cause irritation and abscesses or hematomas. The other testicle is removed in the same way, through the same incision.

One stitch is all that's needed to close the wound. Afterwards, the area is cleaned thoroughly, but in Trio's case, the vet moved on to remove his abscess.

A buck shouldn't be put in with an intact doe until at least 4 weeks after the surgery, to be on the safe side, as some small amount of semen may still exist. Also if a buck has been castrated because of aggression, effects might not be seen until 4 weeks as hormones can still be in the system.

Here he is just before the anaesthetic mask was removed. His abscess was left open and he was sent home on a course of Synulox drops. The scrotal sac usually shrinks after a short period of time.

What happens when you don't get treatment

How would you feel if your beloved pet ended up like this? These photos are of Ben's foot, which was badly infected bite wound that he had when he came to me. The whole mass that is visible around his heel in these photos is part of him, no bandage, or anything foreign. That's how bad his foot swelled.

Despite antibiotic treatment and routine cleanings of the area (including blue spray as you can see here), the wound never healed and I'm sorry to report that these photos were taken after he died of a heart attack - the pain was just too much for him. The lesson to be learned here is that there is NO good enough excuse for not getting treatment for your rat.

Please don't let your pet suffer.