This is the tale of Miss Pinkerton aka Pinky. Yesterday towards the end of the afternoon, Steve and I were taking Fearghus on one of his daily walks around the neighborhood when we saw a little baby roof rat laying on the sidewalk all by itself. It barely moved when Steve nudged it with his thumb. The temperature was going to drop soon from the heat of day. There's no way this little one, the size of a pinky finger, would last through the night. Not to mention that one of the neighborhood cats would surely take it for a midnight snack.
So Steve cradled it in his hand as we turned around and went back home. I cut a piece of batting and laid it on the bottom of a shoebox that we had poked holes in for air circulation. We took a fabric rice bag and microwaved it for heat. Turns out that little rats need to be kept at 100 degrees to survive.
Next I ran to the drug store to buy an eye dropper and infant baby formula with the $20 bill that we had found in the gutter earlier that day. It seemed like it was meant to be spent on the little rat.
So far we've reheated the rice bag every two hours and are feeding it every three hours and once in the middle of the night. It turns out that after a feeding a baby rat needs to be bathed (with a wet tissue and wiped dry), massaged for circulation and has to have its little hind end rubbed with a wet Q-tip so that it'll go potty. So far Miss Pinkerton has eaten, gone potty and has survived the night. If she (I think that she is really a he because there's a nubbin but it doesn't really matter at this point) makes it another night then perhaps we can take her to a local rescue organization.
Wild roof rats can be released into the wild once they're about 6 weeks old and this little one is probably less than a week old. They wean at week 3 and begin to get furry around then.
I know, it is fairly ironic to be working so hard to save a little baby roof rat when just the other week we were cheering when Fiona killed the fourth one of its brethren. What can I say, it's hard to walk by and let a little orphaned newborn die all by itself. At least this way it'll have warmth and food. And maybe, just maybe it'll survive another day.
UPDATE: Miss Pinkerton survived the entire weekend. On that Monday morning we were able to drive her to a rat/squirrel rescue group where she'll be able to grow up with a few older rat babies. Once she's about 6 weeks old she should be released to the wild where she'll have her chance to live a rodent's life. Of course it then took Steve and I the entire week to recuperate from two nights of little to no sleep. I'm sure that Pinky appreciated it.
