#spoiledratupdate
I lost Garion -- one of the old men -- a week ago today. It was not unexpected; a previous owner actually happened to know their birthdate, June 1st 2018, which means Garion was just shy of three. Hitting three for a rat is like a human hitting a hundred. Domesticated rattos live a lot longer than their feral counterparts, but not a lot of them make it quite that far. Garion also spent a fair chunk of last year suffering through the single worst bout of pneumonia I have ever seen a rat survive. He recovered pretty well, but never quite regained all of his weight, and had persistent breathing trouble that I'm guessing was down to scarring of the lungs, since it didn't respond to antibiotics but did remit a bit with the faceful of Dulera he got every morning. I kept the two old men when the other six went off to Mainely Rat Rescue specifically because I figured Garion didn't have a lot of time left. It's difficult to re-home senior rats, I was already their third caretake