Yesterday we bought a baby rat (not yet named) from Petco to keep Hershey company and today I found my hamster, Nougat, dead. They weren’t housed together, so I don’t think there’s any correlation between the new rat joining our home and Nougat dying, but it’s certainly odd because it has been exactly a year since I got Nougat and he wasn’t showing any signs of illness. He was perfectly normal yesterday, but when I checked his cage this evening to give him food I noticed the food I had put there yesterday hadn’t been touched, so I had a bad feeling. Checking his igloo I found him curled up like he died in his sleep. How is it that my mean hamster, Oreo, lived over two years and Nougat only lived a year? RIP Nougat.
Here’s one of the last photos I took of him. It’s not good because I was messing with my new 50 mm lens. The photo below that is of Bella’s buddy, Mimi, who my sister-in-law was dog-sitting and brought over this weekend when we had dinner together.
And here are photos of the new unnamed rat. He moves his head side to side a little strangely, so I suspect he has vision problems. I’m not really sure. He’s separated from Hershey to let him acclimate and for us to make sure he doesn’t have any illnesses he could pass to Hershey.
