03/13/01(Updated by Jenn)-With Eek's new babies and Aargh's worms, we are having quite an interesting project. So far we have not had the chance to do anything with bacteria and the antibiotics yet. There have been too many other things that we have had to deal with. After having a picture of Aargh's worms sent to a veterinarian we now have two possible culprits - Capillora or Tricharis. We are not sure whether this can be treated or not and there is the possibility of getting a new rat in place of Aargh. At this point we are not totally sure of what we are going to do but we need to decide pretty quickly.
03/12/01(Updated by Emily)-Today was quite a suprising day! Jenn and I went into the lab in the morning to check on the rats from the weekend, and heard an abnormal amount of squeaking coming fron Eek's cage. We looked in and found, to our astonishment, a pile of babies!!! Apparently she had bred with Aargh either when they were in the pet store or when they were transported to the school. In any case, she has a new family. There were five pinkies, and we are awaiting to see if Fump will also have a litter. At this point we are quite relieved that Eek was the rat to have the babies, due to the fact that she is the control rat and will not be introduced to any bacteria. From this point on, we will also be massing the babies and observing them just as we observe the adults.
03/7/01(Updated by Jenn)- We took stool cultures from all three rats and made slides. We got pictures and also hope to get the advice of a vet on what it is and what we should do. Hopefully we can get some answers so we can continue with the intended part of the project.
03/6/01(Updated by Jenn)- We took pictures of a couple of the slides that we made from Aargh. We also took a stool culture from Fump but do not think that it was showing anyting in the short time that we had to look at it. We are still not quite sure what to do about this since it does not have an easy cure in rats and mice. We should have more progress tomorrow.
03/5/01(Updated by Jenn)- Aargh was ok when we came in but still has the worms. We were able to take several cultures today and we viewed them under the microscope. We are suspecting pinworm to be the culprit but are not yet fully sure. If it is, we are not sure if it will be easily treated. This is definitely a hurdle but we are just making it part of the project. Fump seemed to ok today but we were going to get a culture and did not have the chance. Hopefully we will tomorrow.
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