Little Ratsies

What do you get when you add 5 rats that a sick snake would not eat and 1 person who is a real sap for animals?

More rats.

And still even more rats.

It had been my intention to thin our rather large flock through attrition, not add to it. These 5 rats became pets by default when Ariana's Nicarguan red-tail boa caught a persistent case of pneumonia. (Yes! Snakes can get pneumonia, just like us warm-blooded types.)

Ratsie became our first pet rat by default when Bao the boa turned her nose up at her rodent repast. After the snake's second snub, I was not going to subject Ratsie to a third encounter with the finicky serpent. However, being a sucker for animals, I could not hand Ratsie over to our 6 cats or release her outside. After all, her white coat would glow like a beacon in the long, snowless winter nights. Thus we had got a new pet in Ratsie.



Since we thought that Bao was off her feed due to breeding or hibernation seaon, and not because she was sick, we tried feeding her 4 more times. So after Ratsie came, Patsie, Blavatsky, and Bo-batsky (Bo-Bo for short.)

Wow! 4 rats.

Because they were still young, it was a little bit hard to tell the girls apart from the boys.

When I thought that my new rat collection was going to stop at 4, Ariana announced that our Siamese cat, Atilla, had caught the rat that had escaped earlier and had been living in the walls for the past three months.

Off to the rescue!


And a big fat welcome to Boo-Boo.

Despite the trouble I was courting by having 5 young rats in one big tank, I was discovering just how fascinating and under-rated these supposed "despised" creatures were.

Rats are very social animals. They are also very clean, constantly grooming themselves. And their nimble and dexterous antics make them very entertaining. If only we could with our feet the things that rats can do with their hind feet!

But the most amazing thing of all was watching these creatures gradually emerge from their fearfulness and timidity into boldness where they freely took sunflower and pumpkins seeds from my fingers. They knew my voice. And when I would call them, they would poke their little heads out, anticipating a tasty treat. Some even let me pick them up without my having to wear gloves.

Of course the inevitable happened. The rats were growing up; and it quickly became apparent that Bo-Bo and Boo-Boo were boys when I saw them strutting their stuff with the ladies.

The first one to become pregnant and have her litter was Blavatsky, the sweetest and gentlest rat in the group.

Thank God I had the presence of mind to clean the rather pungent rat tank the day before she had her babies!




Blavatsky had 9 babies. One day shy of 2 weeks, Patsie had hers, followed by Ratsie the very next day.

What happened next was not something that I would have not anticipated.

After having just had her own litter, Ratsie started stealing Blavatsky's babies, even though they were 5 times larger than her own. The last straw was when both rats decided to have a tug-of-war with one of Blavatsky's babies.

Something had to be done.

I bought a new tank and put Blavatsky and her babies in that tank. Seeing that there were close to 20 remaining rat babies in the original tank, I decided to move the boys in with Blavatsky, crossing my fingers that rats don't reproduce as quickly as cats. After all, a cat that is nursing one litter of kittens can already be pregnant with the next litter.

While Blavatsky's babies were safe, Patsie's babies were now the targets of Ratsie's rat-napping. Fights would break out between the 2 moms. And when I noticed that some of the babies, which were only one day apart in birth, were almost half the size of the other babies, I realized that not all of them were getting the proper nutrition from Ratsie hogging all the babies. There were 19 babies. Yet one rat only has 12 nipples.

So, it seems as though I needed another tank. And lo and behold! Just as I thought that thought, there was a large tank - in excellent condition - lying by the side of the road, ready to be claimed. (Isn't it a wonderful thing when the Universe hears your request and delievers it?!)

With the third tank set up, Ratsie and her babies (or the babies that I "assigned" to her because I had NO idea which little ratlings were actually hers) had their own private crib. The boys went in the road-side tank, while Blavatsky and Patsy, along with their brood, had the original tank.

It was really neat watching Blavatsky's babies open their eyes and start maturing before my very own eyes. In just nearly 3 weeks they were already drinking from the water bottle and eating solid food.

The baby ratlings looked like they jumped out of a children's story book when they were holding the little rings of puppy kibble in their front paws, munching away on them as though they were cookies or donuts.

So, what am I going to do with all of those rat babies?

The guys at the snake shop had offered to buy the rat babies off me. But I could not commit the creatures that had learned to trust my hands to have their lives betrayed by another set of hands, tossed to the awaiting coils of a hungry snake.

So, ask the Universe; and you shall receive.

And I did receive.

One of the vet techs at the animal hospital where I take all my critters adopted one of the babies. Ariana, who had not cared for the rats originally had adopted another. The others went to a local pet shop where the owner gave me store credit. Not a bad deal since I am always in there.

Patsie's babies have opened their eyes and have grown big. Ratsie's babies are catching up. It'll be a matter of a couple of weeks before they, too, take a trip to the pet store. (However, there is one baby with a white crescent moon on its dark head that I am considering adopting.)

In the meantime, Blavatsky looks a little bit fat. Apparently I was not fast enough in separating her from the boys.

Oh well, guess I'll get a little bit more in store credit and buy some extra dog food.