Lone rat

As Dorothy was put to sleep tonight, I only have one remaining rat - Elsie. Elsie will be 3 next month, so she is an old lady now but seems healthy and is very active. However, she has lived with her sisters all of her life. And one by one the others have passed on, so tonight she is for the first time in her life alone. I have a lot of pets at the moment, and due to having so many, I won't be keeping rats after Elsie dies until I have much less other pets. Although I will definitely keep them again. But Elsie will have to live the rest of her life on her own. I won't rehome her as I love her to bits, and being almost 3, I don't think she'd do well with new rats. Shes only known her full sisters, never any unrelated rats so I believe its in her best interests to stay with me even though she'll live without other rats. Apart from having her out of the cage with me as much as possible, is there anything I can do to help her adjust to life without ratty friends? I considered putting a small soft toy into her bed with her so she'd have something to cuddle?

i would try having her alone and if you see she's really unhappy maybe get her a temporary friend? In the netherlands some shelters have "loan rats" who stay with someones last rat and when he dies, the "loaner" gets back to the shelter. No idea if thats an option in ireland though.

If she seems fine on her own, just a lot of attention and see how it goes

If you were closer I'd lend you some girls to try out, just for while she's still alive, but it's not an option being so far away. I think she will be OK on her own, but it's so hard to say, they're all different.

Sorry for your loss :*(

xx

Thank you for advice. I hope she'll be ok on her own too. Shes been awfully quiet since Dorothy died. I'll just give her as much out of cage time as possible. My wee son Joey put one of his mini smurfs into her bed last night and she spent the night cuddled up to it. Fingers crossed she'll be happy. x

I'm so sorry to hear about Dorothy   I hope Elsie is coping