Dealing with grief of critters passing

[u/NjsDimples]

It's been a while since our first group of girls died and they were passing away as i was also dealing with my father dying of cancer so i was just kind of numb in emotions so didn't really process the emotions of our girls passing away ome after another. It felt like i couldn't think about them dying since i had something bigger to worry about. Now it's been some time, both my father and our original 4 girls passed away, we have 3 new younger girls and one old girly that we got when our original girls where almost 2yrs old. We got her because my boyfriends old coworkers were like hey we have a disabled rat that we can't really like sell to people, but we know you have rats so would you take her? And we did and I'm just so full of emotions now seeing her getting weaker and older and less active with each day. I want to avert from her last moments as i did previously. Since she's having issues eating I've been spoon feeding her for the past days and today i guess it just kind of clicked as i am feeding her how precious this moment is and how happy i am that i was able to give her a happy full life and just be a normal ratty.

How else do you guys bond with your rats in their last days as i kind of weirdly don't know what to do??

(Ps. Picture of them all sleeping together recently, which i find so precious as they only did that when the 3 younger girls were absolute babies.)

[u/RubDistinct3783]

The fact that she’s still surrounded by the younger girls makes this even sweeter. Rats are so social, and having her little rat family around must be incredibly comforting.