Adopted on 2/6/10:

Robin the Hooded Rat #18

Robin is the advenuress one. She is the first one to stick her head out the open cage door.

Maid Marian #5

Marian is partially an albino and has red eyes. She sways her head back and forth when she is looking at something, so she must have vision problems.

These two rats were cagemates and are almost full grown. I usually get them a  bit younger. They are not hand trained, so it will take a while to tame them.

Robin has a bit of a belly, which is rigid, so I hope I don't have a pregnant rat!

Gwen

February 8th:

All Saturday evening and all day Sunday we worked on being picked up and being taken out of the cage.

Today came the traumatic cage cleaning experience. I got them both out and put them on the bed and then cleaned their cage. They did very well on the bed, they explored without trying to get down onto the floor. (Youg rats are rather two dimentional and won't venture very far up or down, until you introduce up or down to them.) They also didn't make any new holes in the bedding. My sheets and pillow cases tend to get nibble marks. : )

I had to take out their exercise wheel, which they were using to hide behind (not for exercise). The cage they are in is a bit too small and I will need to set up the larger cage soon.

The larger cage still has to be steam cleaned, since I try not to transfer germs from one set of rats to the next set. I hope to get it set up by the weekend.

February 9th:

Robin is NOT a black hooded rat, she is an agouti hooded rat. Aguoti is the wild color and it is a mixture of browns and reds. Each hair actually is mutlicolored.

My room had been so dark that she looked black, but today when the sun shone in I could see all the muilt colors.

Gwen

February 27th:

I was lucky (?) to get TWO devilish rats this time.

As soon as the light gets turned off they are climbing the walls of the cage searching for a way out to find the snacks they know are nearby. Frotunately after a week they have decided they can't escape and now sit by the front door hoping I will open it and let them out.

Robin yesterday started climbing up the inside of the open door trying to get to the roof of her cage.

I think I need to put the exercise wheels back in!

Gwen