Well, I recently (about a week ago) got two new pet rats. These two came from an acquaintance who I know online. She had bought several new rats from a local pet store and ended up with two “oops” litters of baby rats. She’s been trying to find good homes for all of the babies. So, I went to meet them a couple of weeks ago and then told her I would take two of them.
The new ratties have been hanging out at my parent’s house for the past week. It is always recommended to quarantine new rats whenever possible, even if you are getting rats from someone you know and you are sure that the rats are healthy.
I have two other rats currently, Chloe and Amy. (Rats, unfortunately, only live two to three years. I lost two of my older girls this past spring.) In a week or so, I’ll take the new rats up to Denton and start slowly introducing them to my current rats.
Boxes are fun!
The new rats came from two separate litters. The younger rat, who is the fawn / beige colored one, is about eight weeks or so. The older of two, the black and white one, is about eleven weeks old. They are both girls.
The black and white rat looks a lot like my rat Amy and seems to have a lot of her personality too. She is very curious and adventurous and desperately wants to play with my parent’s dog.
The little one is pretty outgoing, but is a bit more cautious and shy than the other one. I think she’ll come out of her shell, though, as I keep working with her. You might notice in the picture above that she has a notch in her ear. She had this when I got her. Apparently, at one point when she was pretty young she managed to escape from her cage and went on an adventure around the house. The woman I got her from wasn’t sure how she injured the ear.
I’ve been trying to spend a lot of time handling both of them over the past week. Both have been handled some and are use to being picked up and held, but are still sometimes hesitant or shy about new things. For example, the first few days I had them they were pretty much “okay” sitting on my lap. However, they were still a bit too worried to take treats when they were on my lap. (And they really liked the treats, because they would each immediately take a treat as soon as they were back in the cage!) I’ve been hanging out with them in the bathtub and in a long hallway. This way, they can run around and get some exercise and they can also get to know the big scary giant (me) and learn that I’m really not all that bad.
But, already in a week we have made a lot of progress and they both are much more comfortable and relaxed when I pick them up and hold them.
You will definitely be seeing more of these two ratties on my blog in the future! I’ve already added them to the rat page. I’ll try to get some video of them playing. Young rats are very fun to watch. They are full of energy and love to run around and explore. As you can see from the pictures here, they think that boxes are so much fun as play toys.
Also, both of these rats still need names, so if you have any suggestions, let me know.
