Introductions

Otter, Mouse, Ferret and Mole all squished up

We have named our surprise new arrival Otter, to match his new brothers who he is now happily living with.

I was a little weary of handling Otter at first, he had been returned to the pet store for being vicious and I was concerned with all the stress he’d been under he may be a little snappy. I needn’t have worried after a good nights sleep, Otter was a lot calmer. So much so, that I decided not to wait and introduced him to his new rattie family.

Armed with a pair of gardening gloves (just in case things turned nasty) I put both rat cages next to each other and took the lids off. Typical rats, they all ignored each other and were more interested in the new cages and Mole went straight for Otter’s food bowl and started eating, typical Mole. I tried to wait patiently for them to notice each other, but when Mouse and Ferret started to curl up for a nap in Otter’s cage I decided to intervene. Putting on my gardening gloves I scooped all the ratties up and put them in one cage together. After a few hours of initial excitement, nothing major happened just climbing the bars and some bottom sniffing, all four rats went to sleep in different parts of the cage.

Otter is a little weary of his new brothers at first, but that is starting to pass now and they are starting to all sleep together, which is always a good sign.

I have no idea where Otter’s first family got this silly notion that he is vicious from, he is such a sweet little guy. I’m really happy he’s part of our family now.

Otter enjoying his new life with his brothers