Rats rats rats

[PixieofCatan]

Just wanted to post about rats :) I know that there are other rat owners about, come share some pictures of your mischief, please? :)

I love rats. I have five, Howl & Haku, my boys (Howl being the rat under the fridge back in January!) and three girls, Nibbles, Aeryn and Zhaan. Aeryn and Zhaan are our babies who we got four weeks ago as Nibbles companion, Ruby, had a cystic tumour, we thought we'd have a few months with her after diagnosis back in June but she had to be PTS last week :(

Ruby chillin' in her hammock last Wednesday (she took a turn for the worst the next morning).
Nibbles and the two babies in a hammock.
Howl and Haku in their knitted hammock that has lasted many uses and washes last week. They then destroyed it the next day

I think rats are so sweet Love your boy names btw - Miyazaki all the way!
I used to have two girl rats (Willow & Rogue) and then two boys (Kimi & Dylan), but they've long gone to the big cage in the sky. My DH has banned me from having more, mainly because he's a light sleeper and the click-click-click-click-click of rats drinking from a water bottle in the night drives him ape!

Aww, sorry to hear you only just lost Ruby, I skim read and missed that

:) Indeed! We were supposed to get two girls to be named Sophie and Sen but the breeder fucked up and reserved us boys so they got the corresponding names :) The babies are named after Farscape characters :) Ruby and Nibbles were fostered which is why they haven't got themed names We spent the first few days calling Nibbles Ruby because of her eyes, and then realised that on the picture the original owner's daughter had drawn she'd written the names next to them and we'd gotten it wrong

No worries, I was really, really upset about it which surprised me. I knew it was coming but as we'd only picked them up from the rat sitter on the Tuesday night (when we got back from our holiday) and she was fine Wednesday, I didn't think I'd find her in a bad way on Thursday morning. I still am a bit upset, but very glad we got the babies when we did so that Nibbles has the company (we weren't supposed to get them until this week as we thought that we'd have her for another month or so yet!)

This is Zhaan, our little rex, she's an absolute sweetie. I'll have to wait until tomorrow to spam post more now!

We sleep with ear plugs in most of the time, so the night noises don't bother us too much! We had the big girls in our room for two weeks after getting them and they were so bloody noisy, heard them through the earplugs too! Sods. A bird cage with water through thing that hangs from the side of the cage might solve the clicking issue?

Aww, what a sweetie! She looks so tiny in that hammock!
If only it was just the water noise though - my girls used to have a habit of pushing all the sawdust out between the bars of the cage in the middle of the night! You'd turn the light on to give them a stern look, and they'd freeze with a 'we're not doing anything' expression!

Haha, we had to switch to fleece in our girls cage for that reason! Though the worst was that we didn't realise for a week, because they were shoving it down the back of their cage. We couldn't work out why the room was smellier than usual until we took their cage from its shelf!

Awwww she looks so sweet sleeping , all butter wouldn't melt "Yes you won't catch me disappearing behind the fridge , eh?"

Haha, yeah, Zhaan is gorgeous. She's actually less likely to go under the fridge yet. Her sister OTOH, is a crazy little thing. She's quite difficult to control and not happy at the idea that she's not yet allowed to free range! Very vocal about it too!

www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10154494813480578&set=vb.879715577&type=2&theater
Video of Aeryn, noisy little sod!

Yeah Gods they're lively
I think you need to learn to juggle them

They are gorgeous I must say, but add the agility to intelligence...........well I'll stick to my nice but dim lardy hogs. (They'd go into the fridge not behind it, then complain about the cold )

Haha, yeah, Aeryn is queen at climbing, she scales the side of the cage in less than a second and she's gone behind it. We have to be so careful with her! And, as you know, Howl got behind the fridge within a minute of me holding him the first time I held him.

I am glad we went with rats, but one day, when we have a garden, I'd probably be eyeing up GPs too :) They are very funny creatures. I'd have to have a big garden though, I remember a house I lodged in had them at the end of a very long, thin garden and we could still hear the bloody eeping! Noisy feckers

My boys

Our girls :)

- in the photos the look quite laid back and lardy . In the video, you can see how quick they can shift.
Can you hold their tails at the rump (I had mice years ago, if we were holding them, we secured them by the tail/rump join, or they would scamper along our arm. One liked living in a cardigan pocket )

What's in the cup? Sweet tea? Gin? Cup-a-Soup?

Yeah, they're very fast. We've just been free ranging both sets on the bed (separately) and the girls went mad running around it. The boys took their time and were a bit slower, but they can get quick if they want to be usually when it involves Haku running under the sofa because it's oh so hilarious

Tea in the mug Howl loves tea. He's now gotten big enough that the mug wobbles a bit

I don't think that you can hold them by the tail/rump bit, I know that you definitely can't hold them by the tail, but I don't think that either.

Zhaan covered me in gravy earlier, I offered her my plate after dinner to lap up peas and gravy, she jumped onto it, freaked out about something and ran up my shirt and into my bra.

What are mice like to own? I held one at the shop we got our girlies from (local NFRS breeder has opened a pet shop near us, very rat orientated too ), it was male and it was really smelly. He was her breeder apparently, so so small. I'd be scared of breaking them!

Male mice are stinkey and fighty. I bought 2 , we had to take them back, but we swapped them for two females who were lovely but (in common with alot of rodents, one was pg)
They (the girls) escaped from the cage one weekend and free ranged in my bedroom, glamping/living rough on a digestive biscuit (good job I;m untidy)

One mouselet escaped for a month, lived in a cupboard (we fed him and eventually caught him)

The female adults (Sugar and Spice) were built a 3 storey mousehouse by my dad. (Ladders, two wheels, sleeping area)
We had to have the Mum mouse PTS when she developed a tumour that grew large enough to interfere with her mobility it was on her shoulder.
The other one lived in the hall in her MouseHouse for a few more months, She was calm and lovely, she was the one who slept in my cardigan pocket

I do much prefer my guineas. When we had the mice, I got two female pigs who were very judgey at how noisy the mice were with their pesky whirly wheels at 3am

Our mice used to run along the underside of my arm with their tiny grippy feet and whip with their tails.

Guinea- no tail tick
Guinea- if GP3 tried any running along my arm stuff, my arm would whomp to the floor

My dad used to take tea with milk/sugar and always leaves 1" of tea in his cup (I think from tea leaf days , the dregs of tea had all the bits)
My very first piggie (boar) used to balance on the cup (on the floor) and stretch his neck right in to drink it.
Never,ever tipped the cup over. Very tidy little boy, litter trained too glares at untidy pigs I have now

That's brilliant, I can't imagine a piggie drinking tea, must be quite a sight!

Bumping, any rat owners have pictures to go with mine? :)

More photos!
Howl and Haku nomming, Aeryn being very cute, look at that nose!

These three are Zhaan, Nibbles and Aeryn :)
Zhaan and Aeryn are 13 weeks old, still very playful and popcorn-y!

I have 14 ratties. :)
I've a gorgous glossy black girl called Blackie (from WASP my favourite band) and she's the most dominant, take-no-shit rat I've ever had. Absolutely love her.

Her cage mate, Dole, died recently. She was a black hooded, but had a litter before she went so still some Dolage around.

^Have also have had my rats living "wild" with me.

I think they are hilarious when they revert to shy, wild type behaviour. Popping heads out behind furniture looking a bit mad!