Baby Rats!!!
Yesterday, jbmcdragon and I drove to Sacramento to Candirats Rattery (warning, she has a really annoying website), so I could adopt three baby rats! I'd considered adopting from rescue again, but I really wanted to have babies, healthy babies. In fact, I decided, since I love curly coated, dumbo eared rats so much, I'd like to adopt curly coat dumbo baby rats. That meant finding a rattery. I found several, and of them a few had litters planned that were just what I was looking for. Candirats, in Sacramento, seemed awfully far away, but since I wasn't able to get on a litter waiting list anywhere else, I told her I'd like to be on the list for some babies that might be ready to adopt in June-the soonest she had available.
Well, come this Monday, I got an email: A couple of the people she thought she had lined up for an earlier litter had backed out-was I interested in the current litter? She sent a link to some pictures of the available litter for me to choose from. I picked M1, M4 and M7 from the photos, we agreed to meet Friday, I cajoled JB into driving up with me, and off we went.
First off, it takes closer to three hours or more to drive to Sacramento from my house, not 2:12, Mapquest. Especially not in bumper-to-bumper Friday traffic. Which it was, almost the entire way. Fortunately JB is both laid back and excellent company, so it was fun. About 2/3 of the way there I realized I'd forgotten to bring the carry cage! And traffic was vile, and we were hungry, so we used the "add waypoint" feature on my GPS to find an In-N-Out Burgers, which, it turned out, was right next to a PetSmart! Joy! So we got foods, and bought a birdcage to use as a temporary baby rat home, and set off again. At that point we were almost an hour behind schedule, with another hour yet to drive. Fortunately Candice from the rattery called me (I didn't have a phone number for her!) and after a little apologizing, things were okay. So more driving! The twenty minutes we'd stopped to eat and find a cage had allowed traffic to thin, too, so it was going maybe 35 or 40 miles an hour instead of 10. Whee!
We arrived at the rattery at last, and then, after greeting the many critters, including an Amazon green parrot, a faded conure who looked like JB's Bobby da Bird if he'd been left in the sun, a dying parakeet with a serious beak problem, a black pug, an orange tabby, a crated mastiff, an assortment of rabbits, guinea pigs and rats, we met our litter!
Actually first we met a hairless dwarf rat, because I'd asked about dwarf rats, which she breeds. They stay at about the size of a six week old rat their entire lives! Hairless rats are kinda sad looking though. But man, dwarf rats are adorable. Also, the room she has the rats in smelled seriously of not-cleaned cages. Which, uh... Yeah. Gave me and JB some pause. And the poorly cared for parakeet was alarming, though she described it as a rescue. Still, I heard no sneezes, and the rats seemed healthy, though smelly.
Anyway.
Our litter! We saw the cage of girls, who were adorable, but since I wanted males, she brought out all the boys. A couple weren't adoptable, since they are already spoken for, but she gave me the remaining ones to choose from. As it happens, even playing with them in person, I picked the same three I'd picked from the photos.
In keeping with my scheme of giving my rats Japanese names, I decided to name this trio for manga characters I like whose names end in o. From Firefighter! Me Gumi no Daigo I have Daigo, named for the title character, Asahina Daigo. Daigo in the manga is a big, brawny, bold young firefighter with a nose for trouble. Daigo the rat is the biggest of my three, a silky smooth coated dumbo with Himalayan coloring: white with colored nose, ears, paws and tail. It looks like he's blue point, which is going to be really gorgeous! He has black eyes, which really stand out against his very white coat. That's rat M1 in the photos. I thought Daigo was a good name for him, since he looks like he's got soot on his nose.
Daigo
Rat number two, M7, is Sano, named for Sagara Sanosuke from Rurouni Kenshin. Sano the character is a rebel brawler with a heart of gold. Sano the rat is a curly coated dumbo with rich Siamese coloring. At the moment he's a sort of pale taffy brown with darker nose, ears, paws and rump and tail. As he grows his coloring will probably darken a bit. He's seriously going to be a pin-up boy of a rat.
Sano
Rat three, M4, is Zoro. He's named for Roronora Zoro from One Piece. Manga Zoro is a compact, fiesty swordsman pirate. Zoro the rat is mch the smallest of the three, and in fact I wonder if he might not be a dwarf, though the breeder thought it was unlikely, since none of the other babies in the litter were dwarves. Still, dwarfism is a recessive trait, and dwarf babies can appear in a normal size litter. Zoro is a curly coated dumbo with pink eyes and a cream-colored coat and the barest beginnings of color points. He may darken to a Siamese coloring as he grows, or he may stay closer to a brown and cream Himalayan. I didn't so much choose him as him choosing me, I picked him up, he climbed right onto my shoulder, curled up against my neck and went to sleep. How could I say no? I worry a little that his small size, if it isn't dwarfism, could be due to a heart or metabolic defect, but he seems healthy and lively, and he's utterly adorable and won my heart so... He's my Zoro.
Zoro
All three babies are in quarantine for two weeks, to be sure there are no communicable sniffles between them and my existing rats. Then my plan is to move Anzu-hime and Izumo to one of the smaller cages, introduce Survivor to the babies, and move the four of them into the big cage. But first the babies have to get big enough they can't slip out between the bars of the big cage!
Now... I bet you'd like to see some more pictures!
Sano, Daigo and Zoro
Handful of Daigo
Handful of Sano
Handful of Zoro
Pinup Sano
Three baby rats in one hand!
Daigo, Zoro, and Sano
Well, come this Monday, I got an email: A couple of the people she thought she had lined up for an earlier litter had backed out-was I interested in the current litter? She sent a link to some pictures of the available litter for me to choose from. I picked M1, M4 and M7 from the photos, we agreed to meet Friday, I cajoled JB into driving up with me, and off we went.
First off, it takes closer to three hours or more to drive to Sacramento from my house, not 2:12, Mapquest. Especially not in bumper-to-bumper Friday traffic. Which it was, almost the entire way. Fortunately JB is both laid back and excellent company, so it was fun. About 2/3 of the way there I realized I'd forgotten to bring the carry cage! And traffic was vile, and we were hungry, so we used the "add waypoint" feature on my GPS to find an In-N-Out Burgers, which, it turned out, was right next to a PetSmart! Joy! So we got foods, and bought a birdcage to use as a temporary baby rat home, and set off again. At that point we were almost an hour behind schedule, with another hour yet to drive. Fortunately Candice from the rattery called me (I didn't have a phone number for her!) and after a little apologizing, things were okay. So more driving! The twenty minutes we'd stopped to eat and find a cage had allowed traffic to thin, too, so it was going maybe 35 or 40 miles an hour instead of 10. Whee!
We arrived at the rattery at last, and then, after greeting the many critters, including an Amazon green parrot, a faded conure who looked like JB's Bobby da Bird if he'd been left in the sun, a dying parakeet with a serious beak problem, a black pug, an orange tabby, a crated mastiff, an assortment of rabbits, guinea pigs and rats, we met our litter!
Actually first we met a hairless dwarf rat, because I'd asked about dwarf rats, which she breeds. They stay at about the size of a six week old rat their entire lives! Hairless rats are kinda sad looking though. But man, dwarf rats are adorable. Also, the room she has the rats in smelled seriously of not-cleaned cages. Which, uh... Yeah. Gave me and JB some pause. And the poorly cared for parakeet was alarming, though she described it as a rescue. Still, I heard no sneezes, and the rats seemed healthy, though smelly.
Anyway.
Our litter! We saw the cage of girls, who were adorable, but since I wanted males, she brought out all the boys. A couple weren't adoptable, since they are already spoken for, but she gave me the remaining ones to choose from. As it happens, even playing with them in person, I picked the same three I'd picked from the photos.
In keeping with my scheme of giving my rats Japanese names, I decided to name this trio for manga characters I like whose names end in o. From Firefighter! Me Gumi no Daigo I have Daigo, named for the title character, Asahina Daigo. Daigo in the manga is a big, brawny, bold young firefighter with a nose for trouble. Daigo the rat is the biggest of my three, a silky smooth coated dumbo with Himalayan coloring: white with colored nose, ears, paws and tail. It looks like he's blue point, which is going to be really gorgeous! He has black eyes, which really stand out against his very white coat. That's rat M1 in the photos. I thought Daigo was a good name for him, since he looks like he's got soot on his nose.
Daigo
Rat number two, M7, is Sano, named for Sagara Sanosuke from Rurouni Kenshin. Sano the character is a rebel brawler with a heart of gold. Sano the rat is a curly coated dumbo with rich Siamese coloring. At the moment he's a sort of pale taffy brown with darker nose, ears, paws and rump and tail. As he grows his coloring will probably darken a bit. He's seriously going to be a pin-up boy of a rat.
Sano
Rat three, M4, is Zoro. He's named for Roronora Zoro from One Piece. Manga Zoro is a compact, fiesty swordsman pirate. Zoro the rat is mch the smallest of the three, and in fact I wonder if he might not be a dwarf, though the breeder thought it was unlikely, since none of the other babies in the litter were dwarves. Still, dwarfism is a recessive trait, and dwarf babies can appear in a normal size litter. Zoro is a curly coated dumbo with pink eyes and a cream-colored coat and the barest beginnings of color points. He may darken to a Siamese coloring as he grows, or he may stay closer to a brown and cream Himalayan. I didn't so much choose him as him choosing me, I picked him up, he climbed right onto my shoulder, curled up against my neck and went to sleep. How could I say no? I worry a little that his small size, if it isn't dwarfism, could be due to a heart or metabolic defect, but he seems healthy and lively, and he's utterly adorable and won my heart so... He's my Zoro.
Zoro
All three babies are in quarantine for two weeks, to be sure there are no communicable sniffles between them and my existing rats. Then my plan is to move Anzu-hime and Izumo to one of the smaller cages, introduce Survivor to the babies, and move the four of them into the big cage. But first the babies have to get big enough they can't slip out between the bars of the big cage!
Now... I bet you'd like to see some more pictures!
Sano, Daigo and Zoro
Handful of Daigo
Handful of Sano
Handful of Zoro
Pinup Sano
Three baby rats in one hand!
Daigo, Zoro, and Sano