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Ok i lied here are some more       I wanted to get video too but my camera died and needs to charge now 
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Jul 28, 2010 20:29
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| # ? Apr 24, 2024 17:27 |
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God, they're so ugly they're cute  How many so far?
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Jul 28, 2010 21:50
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Eraser babies! 
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Jul 28, 2010 23:29
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daggerdragon posted:God, they're so ugly they're cute 13 total.  Pics incoming as soon as photobucket stop being retarded
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Jul 29, 2010 01:08
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Okay, got pics. Mom is haggard and skinny but she's eating well and all the babies have milk bands. She's being an awesome mom for her first litter, the labor was really easy for her and none of the babies are particularly bruised or bitten. I'll probably definitely keep her around for a few more litters, I'm very impressed with her for a first time mom. There are 7 females and 6 males, so a pretty even split. I want to keep a few females for breeding, so that's nice. PICS:            The girls:    The far less cooperative boys:    Girls on left, boys on right:  I'll try to get pictures every couple of days as they grow. I'll be handling/interacting with this litter a lot more than future litters: since I will be keeping a couple, I want these guys to be relatively friendly.
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Jul 29, 2010 01:32
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Awwww, wee paws and whiskers! Thanks for posting those. They're adorable.
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Jul 29, 2010 03:13
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Okay, just more pics of my two crazy girls !    They are very cute. Now they stay on my lap, completely still, while i pet them, it's quite a nice sensation, but i dont know if they stand still because they are frozen scared, or because they are frozen in love. Still, i guess it's a nice improvement, cause before they wouldnt stop running everywhere during the first 20 minutes i would get them out of their cage.
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Jul 29, 2010 11:14
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I just got back from house sitting while leaving the rats with my brother for 2 days. My 2 girls seem just great, sleepy and still not used to me. When I reached into pet one she did something odd which her sister copied. It almost looked like she was huffing and squeaking very softly, this lasted for about 10 seconds. Neither seemed distressed, they were both nuzzling and sniffing my hand, and continued to eat their mini carrots after they stopped making the noise. What were they doing?
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Jul 29, 2010 19:34
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We gave them a box of tissues for fun today: Click here for the full 1000x750 image.
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Jul 30, 2010 00:11
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We're getting two 8-week old females tomorrow, with a reasonably large cage from a local pet-shop/small animal breeder. I went to speak to him before I considered buying, and all of the rats seem well cared for and socialised, and they in fact insisted I bought more than one as it would be better for them in the long run. Now, is 8-weeks still a little young, and if so, do I have to be aware of any dietary requirements or the like, or should I be okay with one of the many recommended mixes in the OP?
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Jul 30, 2010 01:17
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Eight weeks is practically adulthood. Anything in the OP is fine except Oxbow Regal Rat which for some reason is 4 months+, I really am not sure why. Someone tell me!
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Jul 30, 2010 04:34
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CompactFanny posted:Eight weeks is practically adulthood. Anything in the OP is fine except Oxbow Regal Rat which for some reason is 4 months+, I really am not sure why. Someone tell me! I have never heard this. I'd be interested in knowing why, too.
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Jul 30, 2010 05:01
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Ugrok posted:Also my rats all hated Regal Rat. Which is a bummer because it's heart-shaped and adorable and smells like apples.
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Jul 30, 2010 07:10
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Getting them in a few hours, so bloody excited. Will post pictures once we get them home and settled. Should I leave them alone for a while before handling them, or should I just give them a cuddle after they've settled slightly?
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Jul 30, 2010 10:00
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http://www.oxbowanimalhealth.com/products/type/detail?object=1547 Under "Feeding" it says 4 months+ but doesn't list a reason why. 
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Jul 30, 2010 13:29
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Donkey Darko posted:Getting them in a few hours, so bloody excited. Will post pictures once we get them home and settled. touch touch touch! the more you handle them, esp at a young age, the friendlier they'll be. 
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Jul 30, 2010 14:02
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The Oxbow's protein is pretty low for growing rats (only 14%). You could probably feed it and supplement with a high quality dog food or with protein rich 'people' food.
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Jul 30, 2010 14:50
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Some pictures of my new friends! Click here for the full 540x720 image. Meet Pam and Boo.  Click here for the full 540x720 image. This is Boo, and she is almost hooded, but the line down her spine is broken into sections, which a big splodge in the middle of her back.  Click here for the full 540x720 image. This is Pam, she's a strange browny/grey colour all over, and the more dominant of the two.  Click here for the full 540x720 image. Bonus shot of Pam being Camera shy. They are lovely, I gave them an hour to get settled in after the ride home and grabbed them individually for a good cuddle. Pam fell asleep on me almost straight away, which was but Boo is very nervous still and would rather stay in her cage and sleep in her little house than come out to play -- I will be persistent however.
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Jul 30, 2010 19:15
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Awww babies! Congrats They are so sweet. Enjoy them whilst they are that small. I look back at pictures of my boys when I first got them and still can't believe they were ever that small.
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Jul 30, 2010 19:28
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Yeah, fer real, enjoy them while they're tiny and hold still once in a drat while. I remember when my girls could only zip around for 15-20 mins at a time, then had to crash for 5 mins. So cute. Of course, once they're older they don't take cute naps but they do get a lot smarter and start recognizing their names and MOST IMPORTANTLY they stop pooping a billion times a minute. My girls are quite small at 8 months (fully grown?). Could that possibly be because they were only fed food blocks at the pet store in their youth?
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Jul 30, 2010 23:15
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I found my girl scuttering around in the bathroom... thank god. but now my neutered boy is going to town on her. Is this just a dominance thing or should I be worried? They made rat love about 20 times in the past hour.
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Jul 31, 2010 05:01
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Squid posted:My girls are quite small at 8 months (fully grown?). Could that possibly be because they were only fed food blocks at the pet store in their youth? Mostly likely means they were seperated from their mother too early and didnt have enough nutrition early on. Their immune system i probably not good, you need to start giving them a good diet. They might just be small but its always worth getting them strong and healthy for the second year of their life. I hand raised an abandoned pinky, i never thought she would make it. 2 Weeks of not sleeping with a little pinky rat in my hand everywhere i went. When she first opened her eyes, i cant explain the emotions i felt, it was too much.  I called her Zoomer because she was always a runt. Zoomer never grew out of the tiny, hyper active baby stage.  She had no fear of anything or anyone. She used to leap off the highest points of my room onto people like a sugar glider. Always in your face, in your mouth looking for food or some rodentistry or cleaning my earrings. Oh god that tickled. I used to throw her in the air or at my brother. She loved it. If i tried to put her down she'd instantly run up the curtains and jump back. Normally when i walk in my room i walk slow and carefully look at the floor, with her it was bat country. WEEEEEEEE!!!  Getting ready to launch  MWUAH    When she got sick nothing worked because she had such a weak immune system. It was hard seeing her go from one of the most energetic creatures Ive ever seen to sleeping all the time on my headboard. She used to jump off it all the time while i was trying to sleep. She only lived for a year. I like to think it was the best year any rat could have ever had. I miss her terribly sushisleeper posted:They made rat love about 20 times in the past hour. Slidje fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Jul 31, 2010 |
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Jul 31, 2010 16:15
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sushisleeper posted:I found my girl scuttering around in the bathroom... thank god. but now my neutered boy is going to town on her. Is this just a dominance thing or should I be worried? They made rat love about 20 times in the past hour. The probably just smells weird, my dogs do the same thing to each other when I bathe them or put Frontline on them.  Slidje posted:
The male is neutered.
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Jul 31, 2010 17:36
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Slidje posted:What on earth are you doing, are you trying to breed them? Haha, absolutely not. No way in hell do I want a 100 baby rat army in my tiny apartment. The male is neutered as stated above and he has only been so for about a month. I put them together about 2 weeks after his surgery to make sure that he wasn't fertile and the boy bits were all healed up. They've been together for a week now since she ran away and I caught her. I'm seeing the rat humping behavior happen for about 2 hours straight at a time. I'm assuming that this is just a dominance thing, but kind of surprised to see it in a neutered male to a female. I kind of assumed that neutered males were supposed to be really mellow/low agression/dominance. I'm thinking that Rosemary, my girl, is in heat right now since she was showing "lordosis" and doing the ear wiggle rat thing or if they are just sorting out dominance issues. This is my first time I've had a mixed gender pair, so I was curious if any other rat owner had experiences with them. My previous ratties were a hairless girl and female pairs.
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Jul 31, 2010 21:56
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sushisleeper posted:Haha, absolutely not. No way in hell do I want a 100 baby rat army in my tiny apartment. The male is neutered as stated above and he has only been so for about a month. I put them together about 2 weeks after his surgery to make sure that he wasn't fertile and the boy bits were all healed up. It's not dominance. Neutering doesn't completely eliminate interest in mating (in any species.) It does reduce hormone levels and it will reduce desire to mate to some extent, but he doesn't know he doesn't have balls anymore and it probably still feels good. If she's cool with it and isn't freaking out about it, it's no biggie.
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Jul 31, 2010 22:08
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Superconsndar posted:The male is neutered. Superconsndar posted:It's not dominance. I've never had mixed pairs yet but I have read a tremendous amount of stories about them. It does sound all normal to me. If you havent bathed and introduced them try it now. If you have then she might have picked up some wierd smells in the bathroom like Superconsndar said. I agree though, if shes not freaking out leave them to it.
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Aug 1, 2010 02:01
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Slidje posted:Yes I read that but I still didn't understand whats going on In my experience with mixed sex groups, there is VERY little dominance behavior between the sexes- it seems to primarily play out with both sexes having separate hierarchies. Rats also rely more on forced grooming, controlling access to food, marking, and flipping each other over than they do on humping as a dominance behavior. I *have* seen it but rarely, and even more rarely between the sexes. I've seen very little humping behavior between males/females (and even between females; who will hump each other to relieve stress while in heat) that wasn't mating related. If dominance humping occurs it seems to be primarily between males and even then I haven't seen it often. There are exceptions of course, but that's been my overall experience. Supercondescending fucked around with this message at 02:08 on Aug 1, 2010 |
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Aug 1, 2010 02:06
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Thank you for the responses everyone! There is a lot of allo-grooming on the part of Balls towards Rosemary and flipping behavior. Balls usually flips Rosemary over and she will go limp, most likely to prevent any more dominance or a "you're the dominant one!" sign. I just assumed that neutering would eliminate all sexual behavior in rats... Rosemary has become a little more withdrawn and shy since she's gotten back to her cage after running away. Rats are really amazing creatures socially and behaviorally and adorable to boot.
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Aug 1, 2010 21:53
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Well, Pam made a daring escape today, by taking advantage of the fact I wasn't paying close enough attention to her and leaping out from my arms and under the bed. 30 mins later, we found her and caught her, but I am concerned that I won't be able to have her out to play as much if I have to spend every second making sure she isn't going to escape! We've rat-proofed the room as best we can, but they're both so small, I'm sure they'd find a way out of the room and into the teeth of my mom's little terrier. I'd have no problem with them running around if I were convinced they'd come back to me or the cage eventually, but I've only had them a couple of days so I seriously doubt she would if she could find some alternative food source (like the kitchen, for instance). Any suggestions on how to socialise adventurous tiny rats, while not having them go AWOL, would be gratefully received. I think I suck at picking toys for them too, as they've shown zero interest in anything we've offered them. That said, Boo, is a complete fuss-pot and likes nothing better than getting her belly-rubbed and falling asleep on me.
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Aug 2, 2010 03:40
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Donkey Darko posted:Free time comes carefully later. I'll open the cage and sit in front, if they try to run past me or behind the cage I'll pop them back in. If they come to me and sit in my lap its belly rubs and treats. They'll only play with toys when they're bored in their cage. I've had a whole bunch of rat toys but the only things they've liked are wine corks, wood chews and those bird seed things you hang in bird cages. They HATE feathers. Mine dont like toys probably because I don't keep my rats locked up once they're settled, they have a free run of the room. They go back to the cage for food and sleep. Rats are very destructive so I don't recommend them running free all the time unless you dont care about what they break in your room. Boys are significantly less destructive than lady rats, but boy rats will pee on stuff when they're new. They stop scent marking after about a month. Buy some odor neutralising drops if you have males. Squid posted:Slidje, I can't believe you raised a pinky rat, holy poo poo. You are the rat master. I'm sure Zoomer did have the best year any rat ever had. Sleeping was hard I always thought I might crush her in my sleep. Set my alarm every hour so i can see if she wanted food. Kept expecting her to give up at any moment. I woke up once and she wasnt there, as i got up she had wriggled under my neck and squeeked when i moved. Slidje fucked around with this message at 14:16 on Aug 2, 2010 |
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Aug 2, 2010 13:49
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At first we put our leetle rats in the tub, then graduated them to the run of the bathroom, then the larger rooms in the apartment once they would come when called. I suggest locking them in the bathroom with you for play time, where they can't really escape -- though make sure to check under cabinets for holes! Our otherwise nice looking apartment had ugly random holes all up under the cabinets that I had to block off. So glad I didn't have that experience of losing a rat in there, who knows where the hell it goes. Our girls don't show interest in toys when we're around, I think we're just way more interesting and/or it's day time and they are sleepy not bored. I know they play with everything at night though, 'cause I can hear them. Slidje, I can't believe you raised a pinky rat, holy poo poo. You are the rat master. I'm sure Zoomer did have the best year any rat ever had. Along the same vein, I do try to feed my rats the best I can 'cause I know they have such short life spans. I try to give them something different every day, something out of what I'm eating, fruits, veggies, sparing protein. I want them to have the most experience they can get outta life, which is also why I take them out places. My Mom thinks I'm a little nuts, but at least my boyfriend understands. I think once you observe rats closely you can't help but realize how intelligent they are. I have a hard time making mine go back into their cage at night, now that I know exactly how much they love running around the apartment. Vasquez watches me wherever I am and will sit with her face mushed against the bars in the closest corner to wherever I am giving me puppy dog eyes.
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Aug 2, 2010 13:50
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Slidje posted:For the first 2 weeks i get rats I never let them out the cage unless its in my shirt or I'm holding them. When they go back in i give them a treat. Thanks, that's really helpful advice! I am going to restrict them to my arms/shoulder and wandering around showing them the room for a bit until they're more settled.
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Aug 2, 2010 23:20
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I've been thinking about getting rats for over a year now, and I have a couple questions for you experts. First of all, I live in shared accommodation and one of my housemates has a gerbil that is kept in the living room, which is where I'd want to put my rats. I'm wondering if the presence of a gerbil will bother the rats? The living room is quite small so I doubt I'd be able to keep them out of sight of each other. Also despite what my housemate has told me the gerbil is prooobably male (or has a cracking pair of balls for a girl), if that makes a difference. Secondly.. I've never kept rats before (in fact, I've never had a pet before at all) and I'm not sure the best way to get the rats. From what I've read rats will probably be easier to socialise when bought from a breeder and are young, but is getting a young rat a good idea for a first-time rat owner? Would it be better if I got an older rat, or would they be more likely to be difficult to socialise? I'm a little unsure of buying rats from a breeder because I feel rather guilty knowing there may be rats in shelters that need homes, but since I'm a novice at this maybe getting a rescue rat is a bad idea.  I also can't seem to find a decent breeder in my area (Middlesbrough, England) and I can't drive, so that limits me a bit. Any brits here know a good breeder in the area? I've seen a few ads for rat breeders but I'm a horrible judgemental person and their bad websites make me very wary of them.
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Aug 3, 2010 00:05
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dog days are over posted:... A quick search turned up http://www.neratsociety.co.uk/links.html, which looks like it would be a good place to find rat breeders -- even if they are not local, some might be a short(-ish) drive away, so pick a a couple and give them a ring. Most breeders of small animals I've dealt with are pretty much family-run businesses/sole traders, so a bad website or no website shouldn't concern you too much (after all, you're not going to mail-order them, so you're not really interested in their web-design skills), but if you get a bad feeling after speaking to one, then look somewhere else. A rescue rat (or any rescue animal) may have issues that you would not get with young rats from a breeder, like poor socialisation, illness/injury or it even may have been abused, so while there's no problem with getting one you may have to give it some special treatment. If you want an easier time, it might be better to get your first couple of rats from a breeder and look at rescuing when you have a bit of experience. Just remember, you can't buy a single rat, it's not fair on it as they are very social, and while you'll be a great owner/friend, you're not a rat and you're not going to be around 24 hours a day. Donkey Darko fucked around with this message at 00:42 on Aug 3, 2010 |
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Aug 3, 2010 00:27
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Lucy just went to her new home, and her name is now Kimmie (after meeee )
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Aug 3, 2010 01:00
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I have a questions for the more experienced rat goons. I have two females both a little more than a year old. They share a 2/1/4 ft cage(cage is the best term i have for it). I had my first one for about 9 months before I got the second but they moved into their current cage when I got the second. Lately I've noticed small scabs on Prudence my second rat who is a bit more timid in demeanor. These scabs are fairly small about the size of medium to small bread crumbs and I've only really found them on her neck and face. Are these types of injuries common for rats fighting or insects bites? If they are fighting should i let them stay in the same cage or put a divider in?
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Aug 3, 2010 02:54
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RatMachine posted:I have a questions for the more experienced rat goons. That sounds more like mites to me. Whenever I've had rats that routinely fought I ended up seeing gashes and scratches, not speckled scabbing.
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Aug 3, 2010 03:43
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We got our rats Trudy and Joan about a month ago I (me and squidtarts) and just today we went to Petsmart and the hairless rat that was there when we got the first two was still there. We decided we didn't want her to live in Petsmart forever so we took her home. In honor of this horrible girl on some other rat forum, we named her Wrinkles. Her Mad Men name, to go with the other two, is Lois. Now our playful Trudy hates us for bringing home a different rat, although Mama Rat Joan seems to be indifferent at worst to Wrinkles. But we only have one cage so we have to stick them all in there together. We did pudding and vanilla tonight and they seem okay with it, but Trudy and Wrinkles have gotten into a squeak fight three times tonight, all with me yelling HEY at them right when they started. Are they going to kill each other overnight tonight? Will they eventually get along? Should we rush out and buy a crappy small cage just so we can quarantine them for a while? Right now Trudy and Joan are sleeping on the top floor and Wrinkles is exploring the bottom, but I just don't know what kind of trouble they'll get into when the lights go out.
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Aug 3, 2010 03:56
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Boco_T posted:Are they going to kill each other overnight tonight? Will they eventually get along? Should we rush out and buy a crappy small cage just so we can quarantine them for a while? Right now Trudy and Joan are sleeping on the top floor and Wrinkles is exploring the bottom, but I just don't know what kind of trouble they'll get into when the lights go out. Yes, they might kill each other. If they're fighting and can't get away, they'll keep fighting. It's pointless to quarantine now, as your existing rats are exposed to whatever nasties your new rat has, so pray like hell she wasn't carrying anything, although it's still a good idea to get her her own cage until you can spend some time doing extended introductions instead of just chucking them in together.
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Aug 3, 2010 04:15
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| # ? Apr 24, 2024 17:27 |
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Rodent Mortician posted:That sounds more like mites to me. Whenever I've had rats that routinely fought I ended up seeing gashes and scratches, not speckled scabbing.
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Aug 3, 2010 04:15
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