Birthday rats

As is the way, I wasn’t planning to add anymore rats to our family, but after several trips to the pet shop… Well I’m sure you know how it goes :-)

We had honestly only popped in for supplies as I needed to get some bits and pieces for the girls new cage. While on my hunt for what I needed I passed by where they keep their baby rats and saw some beautiful big husky rats. I love husky rats, almost as much as I love agouti rats! So I had a little peek in the tank at them, but I had promised Derek I wouldn’t get any more rats, so we left without them.

Our new arrivals

I did try to keep my promise about not getting anymore rats, but those husky rats were cute, and what better addition to my lovely agouti girls? There was only one snag, Derek was convinced they were male rats, and I had to agree. Though the tank they were in wasn’t labelled, they were rather large, and they had big wide heads - female rats tend to have narrower foreheads, not that you should sex a rat solely on it’s forehead. Even though I would have loved some big, cuddly male rats, I didn’t want to add another cage to our household, so I decided to forget about them - except I couldn’t.

After much deliberation, Derek agreed I could have some more female rats to live with the girls in their big, new cage. As the husky rats I had seen were obviously male, and that pet shop was on the other side of town from us, we decided to pop into a more local store - only to find they didn’t have any rats at all!! Again I tried to be strong, and put the thought of more rats our of my mind. I love my trio of agouti girls and was enjoying getting to know them, but that cage was so BIG, it cried out for some more rats.

So, yesterday on my 40th birthday, I could bear it no more. I got one of my rattie carriers ready and we headed off across town in the hope that we would find some female rats in the tank next to the gorgeous husky boys. I’m pleased to say we were in luck.

Fortunately Derek and I could see the rats were probably female straight off, as the assistant who came to help us was convinced they were boys. Once she had opened the tank, Derek reached in a picked them up to check, but we were right and the two little ratties were female and so, on my 40th birthday they joined our family. How special is that?

Maple & Kiki

As soon as we were out of the pet store, and safely in our car, I got the rats out of their cardboard pet boxes and put them straight in a pet carrier, with a nice soft towel to hide in. I don’t always do this, but we had quite a thirty minute journey home, and it would have been too much for the girls, plus they had been put in separate boxes, which would have made their journey doubly stressful.

Following on from my trio of girls, I also picked names from the video game Animal Crossing, so our new arrivals are called Maple and Kiki. The girls are in a separate cage at the moment, as this is always a sensible precaution, and I am a bit worried about Maple who is a bit sneezy. Hopefully she will settle down once she has got over the stress of all the moving, but until then we will keep a close eye on her.