Posted in The Rattery

So, the kids wanted some pets. DH said only caged pets - not my first choice, but okay. We looked into small pets and decided rats were the ones for us! I was fortunate to get in touch with someone who knew someone whose daughter's high school biology class was in the midst of a breeding project, so directly after Thanksgiving, we acquired three male rats, about 2 months old at the time. Two of the males were very well developed and agressive, while the third was underdeveloped. I asked my sister, whose children have owned rats for many years, and she assured me that it was just an underdeveloped male rat. So our little male ratties were Sniff (Smith, mispronounced by my 5yo, and the mispronunciation stuck), Scabbers (obvious origin), and Skitterwit (named by yours truly).

Then one day I picked up Scabbers and noticed he had gotten VERY fat. In dread, I picked up Skitterwit and Sniff, hoping to feel that they too were overfed and rotund.

They weren't.

So Scabbers-now-Suzi was moved out of the big cage back into the small cage they came in. And on December 30, New Year's Eve Eve, near midnight, we got to watch her birth a litter of TWELVE rittens (that's Rat kITTENS for those out of the rodent-speak loop). They are now two weeks old and awfully cute, I admit. We have five girls and seven boys. I looked up for myself how to differentiate and I think I did a pretty good job with IDs. We'll check again in a few more days to confirm.

Fortunately my sister's kids, who currently have no rats, are taking four. (Serves her right, eh?) And through our homeschool group we've already adopted out three more, so have five left to find homes for. Of course they are not ready to leave mom yet. We'll have to see if there are any we just can't bear to part with.