New baby! (rat)

[RattieOfCatan]

Thought I'd share my new baby! This is Sikozu, she'll be joining the girls when we get her introduced :)

Awwwww little ruby eyed ratling

Was she from your breeder that you got other rat babies from?

Welcome to MumsNet Small Pets Sikozu .

She is from the same breeder :) And she's just as friendly and inquisitive as I'd have expected her to be, and bloody fast! Oh so fast! I forgot how fast they can be as tinies!

Aww lovely.

It broke my heart the other day, I was in the pet shop getting cat litter and there were 4 babies in the tiniest tank. One was trying to get its nose through the gap to my finger. I know pet shops can't get them out etc but they could at least give animals that need it a big run. The rabbits and guinea pigs are in lovely runs but the poor little rats were just in a tiny tank. I wanted to take them all home but I don't think DH would have appreciated that .

Mine are just as fast even though they are 9 months old. I was hoping they may slow down and actually sit on me, but nope, all over the place so the only place I can get them out is the bathroom. I'm fed up of spending an hour sitting on my bathroom floor. No where else I can let the out as one would just be gone and the other would be chewing everything in sight!

Oh no, don't do it to yourself! I can't even look at them in pet shops now!

One of my older girls is as quick as lightening, she gets herself into all sorts of mischief! Ours are free ranged in our main living space but it's a small room so we can keep a decent eye on them. We have had to cover all cables though!

These are my five girls in various cuddle puddles :) I do have to put Kozu with them but they mostly ignore her unless she starts getting jumpy! We're giving them a break today as Kozu was starting to hiss at them every time they went near her, which led to them just pouncing on her. Vicious circle

Ah they are so lovely. I love it when they are cuddled up together. I can't watch mine though as as soon as I go near the cage they come straight over.

I still keep thinking about the poor pet shop ones. I won't get them but I keep thinking if they aren't bought from the pet shop then they are stuck in those tiny tanks with no where to get out, at least if they are bought they get a nicer home.

If we got more after our 2, which is likely because the DCs will be devastated, I think I may get 3. At the moment 1 is obviously going to be left behind and it doesn't seem fair to get a baby to mix with an old rat.

3 is a good number :) It does mean that you do have a "spare" already if one dies, which is a real worry with rats.

I am really strict with myself on pet shop rats because it just contributes to the problem of mass breeding, so they're just going to be replaced by some more form the same situation. Horrid to see them like that though, isn't it?

With our girls we have Nibbles, who is coming up to 3 we think (her latest date of birth would have been in Jan 2013 but that's assuming she was 6 weeks when she was bought by her previous owners which is unlikely!), Aeryn and Zhaan who are 1yr 4months and Oreo who is around a year. Sikozu is definitely getting a bit of a rough deal at the moment but as A&Z are so bouncy still she should be fine once she settles in, we hope anyway So we have a mix of ages.

Admittedly I prefer a mix of ages and love having a group :) Our girls cage is the start of our permanent cage as we have two other cages. Ideally we'll get a new pair or trio every year to 18 months so, in theory, we should have a couple of little ones, a couple of middle aged ones and one/two/three elderly rats at one point in one cage. As opposed to our girls cage, our big boys cage and Ashi's cage!

So you don't have an issue mixing their ages then? I said to DH about getting 3 next time and he said we would still be left with the same issue when 2 go, leaving 1 behind which I completely didn't think about but we both said we wouldn't be able to put a new bouncy baby rat with an old one who had slowed down but is this not actually an issue?

I just wish we could let them free range but we have no doors downstairs, previous owners turned ever doorway in to a shaped bloody archway and there are wires everywhere. It's a shame really. I'd also be paranoid about them escaping and refusing to come out again, although yoghurt would probably get them out, they go mad for it! That and when I shake the treat pot.

No issue with the age really, intros can be difficult no matter what their ages though. We're finding this intro difficult, after a break of a few days we've now got Kozu in with Nibs and Oreo as A&Z were being little sods. We're hoping that they will behave a bit better if they see that the other two are fine with her! A&Z were particularly bitchy when we introduced Oreo to the group though, it took a few weeks to get Oreo into the main cage with them so I'm expecting the same again!

The only big problem with the age is that babies can be hyper, which is why it's preferable to intro them in pairs so that they can bounce off of each other. Kozu jumps all over Nibs in an effort to get her to play and the poor thing just has an expression on her face that says "Why are you doing this to me..." and occasionally shoves her off of her in an effort to get Kozu to leave her alone

Did you happen to see my thread about a baby rat under the fridge around 2 years ago? That was the first night we had pet rats and was not a fun one

Puppy playpens are good "free range" spaces, that's what we used when the others were small, until they chewed through it anyway. Aeryn is queen of finding hiding spaces when free ranging and getting into mischief. She's the one who'll go after wires and the likes -_- For the most part, our others are relatively okay free ranging. They tend to have their "spots" where they hang out and are quite predictable. Our rat sitter has lots of rats and one of hers was a generic free ranger, he'd go all over the house but would come back when called, it was quite sweet really!

Kozu is now coming out as a Himalayan or Siamese too, hence the brown nose and lighter hood That popped up in a couple of days!

Bumping for Blue

As the thread has been bumped I thought that I'd share a more recent photo of Kozu!

She's the fastest rat we've ever owned ever seen, apparently some others from her litter are just as hyper and quick as she is so we're wondering what our breeder was feeding the Mummy Rat when she was pregnant

She has also managed to do a Howl and get under the fridge Apparently the girls had an organised unit of distraction at one end of the room whilst they chewed holes in our rat proofing. She's the only one who fits and thankfully popped straight back out, but still....

She has been a fiesty sod from the start though and been battling for top spot the entire time. The hierarchy has been in chaos since Nibbles, the Old Lady, died a few weeks ago, but it looks as though it's a toss up between Oreo and Kozu as to who is on top!

Oooh she has grown Rattie what a beautiful creature.
I see chocolate brown marking on her nose,will she get the paws and ears colouring too ( my Himmy piggie doesn't have a tail so I don't know if they colour in tailey animals )

She looks like she's got her beady ruby eyes on something over there so yes, a contender for the Alpha Rat Crown.

She has! But she's still very small compared to A&Z when they were this age, though they did come from big genes!

The chocolate brown is on her nose and rump/tail base. It isn't anywhere else though and I think on rats it is usually just nose and rump smudges for himis. She has definitely thought all along that she's alpha so I think she'll get there sooner rather than later