is it true rats die an agonising death? how long do they live and how do they die?

Question

am asking about pet rats here - not wild ones. i love rats - i've never kept them myself but my aunt has always had them and i'd like one of my own but hers died in rather bloody wways and i wanted find out first so i was prepared if i did have one or two even.

Answer 1

Well, I had three rats. I will explain their death and you can decide whether or not you think that it's agonizing.

1. Winifred was the first to go. Even though I took great care of my rats and fed them twice a day, she was very very skinny. This happened suddenly. She would sit in the corner and make huffing/sneezing noises like she had an upper respitory infection. A few days later I found her dead between one wall of the cage and one wall of their plastic house.

2. Sguiggle died second. He was acting completely normal, but one day my mom went in there and found him dead in the shavings with blood in the cage, walls near the cage, soaked in the shavings, and on him. He had hemmoraged, or had internal bleeding that caused him to "explode", for lack of a better word.

3. Bertha died last, which is kind of suprising because she was the oldest and the mother of the other two. Bertha's eye started to pop out farther than her other eye. It got worse and worse and eventually I could see part of a brown lumpy growth pertruding from her eye. I figured she had cancer pressing on the inside of her eye causing it to come out. Soon, she developed tumors on her sides and stomach. It got worse and worse and she got skinny and sick because all the blood was going to the tumors; she wasn't properly nourished. We took her to the vet and it was definetly cancer, Mammory cancer. I already knew it was cancer that was taking her life because before I got rats I purchased a book about their care and it mentioned that a very common disease in rats is cancer. The vet said that if we hadn't decided to put her to sleep (which we decided) that she would eventually "explode". This is because she was getting so big from the tumors and they were holding so much blood.


Personally, I think this is agonizing to some extent. Animals die many ways, but I thought I'd tell my story.

Answer 2

Any animal (humans included) can die an agonizing death. I put some of my rats down before the pain (etc) got to be too much for them. I strive to do that with my other pets too. Sometimes it happens so fast that though. I had a 2 1/2 yr old rat that had a stroke and became paralyzed from the neck down (back). I had him put to sleep the same day, as he was in a serious pain.

Most of my rats lived between 1 1/2 and 2 1/2 yrs. That depends also on if you get them from a pet shop or a breeder (mine were petshop/rescue rats) A professional rat breeder's rats will most likely have less health problems than pet shop animals which have waaaay too much inbreeding.

Rodents in general tend to get tumors and other gross stuff. Skin cancer, untreated respiratory infections, and other cancers and infections related to the lungs and skin are most common for rats. Most of mine died from one or the other.

They don't have to die a gross death. You just have to keep track of whether they seem in pain, whether they're eating and drinking, etc. My rat Luigi began getting lethargic. Within three days he'd only drink milk from a dropper. I took him to the vet and had him put down. Turns out it was a very aggressive liver cancer that had formed, and basically killed him in three days' time. I had guessed it had something to do with his liver: if the rat's skin turns orange, it means the liver is shutting down.

They really are wonderful pets. I wouldn't avoid having one just on the basis of how they might die. It just depends on if two or so years is long enough for you. I'd go back to spend more time with all my rattie boys if I could, but I don't regret having a single one of them! ^.^

Answer 3

I guess they do if they eat rat poison ,or some other animal eat them alive. Or they get in a rat trap. I guess it the same with a lot of animals.
Some people die, a terrible death. So it could be considered that any living thing could die fast are die slow. but we don't have a choice.
Queen Bee

Answer 4

Yes, in the wild they normally do.

The most common causes of death are

Starvation
because rats breed incredibly quickly, they overpopulate, so even when food is plentiful they have problems. In winter many die from shortage of food.

Disease
rats die of a number of infectious diseases, including plague.

Canibalism
Starvation causes rats to eat each other when neccessary.

Hyperthermia.
In cold winters, rats will slowly freeze to death espescially when they are short of food.

Predation
Snakes, Birds of prey, Cats, larger rodents, humans and some dogs will hunt rats as food.

Rat poisoning
rat poisons causes ulceration and internal bleeding. It is a slow and agonising way to go.

Less common causes are drowning from underground flooding and electricution from nibbling at cables

Rats live 1-3 years. Even pet rats struggle to do better because of medical issues (inc infectious disease and tumors)

Answer 5

Ive had some pet rats over the years, and here's how they died (I still have 2 that are alive and well at this point):

My first rat, a female, was a little over 2 years old. She developed some bad tumors. it could have been removed and she could have had a few more months of good quality life. That was 13 years ago though and I didn't know as much about rats, so I had her put to sleep once her tumor was really big.

My second rat, a male, was a little over two years old, and it was the same thing with him - tumor, put to sleep at the vet.

My third rat was a female, and she was about a year and a half old when she developed a respiratory infection that I did not recognize and due to that she did not get treatment. She then developed pneumonia and died in my arms.

Then I got 4 rats at the same time. One of them, a male, at age one and a half, all of a sudden developed respiratory distress. I tried to treat him like for a regular respiratory infection, but he did not respond to any of the meds. Eventually I had to have him put to sleep, because he was suffering and I've tried everything I could. The vet did an autopsy and found that mysteriously he had had an enlarged heart.

My next rat that died was a little female, around age one and a half, and she was very prone to respiratory infection. I treated her repeatedly but she always relapsed as soon as she was off the meds, so finally I decided to have her on lifelong meds continously. But I think her lung damage was so progressed, one day she went into real bad respiratory distress, just like the male with the large heart - I tried putting her into an oxygen tank for a while, but nothing helped at that point, and I had to have her put to sleep.

Then I had another female who was around age one and a half too, and she developed a head tilt. I went and got her treatment as soon as I could, and more than likely it was a pituitary tumor, and treatment came too late for her, as she did not respond to the meds. Her head tilt got more severe, and in the end she could not move around the cage any more. She would try to stand but fall back on her side, and sometimes even just lay around on her back. She died one evening in my husbands arms (unfortunately I had to work when it happened).

So, from my experience, most rats don't live very long, and in a lot of cases they get something and will have to be put to sleep, and yes, in many cases it can be something and they suffer quite a bit. Its hard to see them suffer, you try to do everything you can, but sometimes its not enough.

Everybody says though average age is between 2 to 3 years - it all depends on the quality of breeder. You can get a very good quality rat from a pet store, but you can get a very poor one from a store too. Same goes for breeders. Not all breeders' rats are as good in health quality as they claim to be. My first 2 rats were from pet stores, then 4 of them were from a breeder (the one with the large heart, and the one with the pituitary tumor).
The little female that died of respiratory distress was a lab rat that had come from a breeder.

I currently still have a male rat that came from a breeder. He's ultra fat, but he just turned 2 years old back in July (Yay!), and he appears healthy. I also have another male who will be 2 in October. He's never ever had even the slightest health problem. The only time this little fellow was ever at the vet was as a baby, when I had him neutered. He also was a lab rat through a breeder (same place as the female with respiratory problem).

I had 2 other rats that I recently gave away to somebody. The female came from a breeder and has had 2 lumps removed - apparently they are just enlarged lymph nodes that swell up and then disappear again. She's really healthy otherwise. She also turned 2 in July. And another young male who will just be 1 this year - no health problems so far.

I've heard of somebody who has had so much experience with taking care of them, and most of her rats live at least 3 years and over. She's had many who turned 4 and even a couple who made it over 5 years. The longest that a pet rat ever lived that I heard of was 7 years. But this is rather rare.

So, it depends on what good quality pet you get in the first place, but also how good you are taking care of them. I would say average is probably somewhere between 2 and 3 years, even though I've had quite a few who didn't even make it 2 years.

Answer 6

This is a very weird question!

Rats live about 2-4 years on average as far as I know. As with any animal on Earth, their death can be caused by absolutely any condition, and of course it depends what they're dying from as to how peaceful their passing is. They can die from cancer, organ failure, viral or bacterial infection, malnutrition, injury.... you get the idea. Basically the same causes as any animal or human.

Death is often not very nice for any animal or person - fortunately animals can at least be put to sleep before they have to suffer too much.

Chalice

Answer 7

Rats are subject to the exact same kinds of deaths as humans. That's why they are used as lab subjects for human medical trials. So rats have the potential to die just as peacefully of agonizingly as humans. it just depends what they die from.

You don't say whether you are talking about wild rats or pet rats. Wild rats normally live about 4 or 5 years. Tame rats , due to better nutrition and vet care can live longer . I have had rats live 8 years and have heard of them living 10 years.

Answer 8

depends on how they die . rats live on average 2-3yrs shocked at 8!!

would like to know how !

boy pet rats are fab shame they have a bad rep

Answer 9

2-3 years average life span for domesticated rats. Baffled by claims of 8 to 10 years from previous posts!

Most common causes of death:
Tumours (mammory for girls, brain for boys)
Mycoplasma (respiratory disease) coupled with old age
Kidney disease / failure (hairless ratties)
Obesity

Answer 10

Oh I hope the wild ones do!

They freak me out. Our area drainage system collapsed under the weight of the heavy rains this winter. The rats that appeared on the streets were the size of cats(in the dark).

They weren't even afraid if us and the shrieks of passing pedestrians ruined many an evening for me before I upped and moved house.