Sorry...

Please excuse the poor image quality. The iPhone is so easy to just grab and shoot pics with. better than nothing!

Day 5

Up Down Up Down

oh i have a funny story
last night
cupid was playing with a piece of rope from their hanging toy. she would carry it up to the 3rd or 2nd level of the cage, drop it all the way to the bottom, go back down, carry it back up, drop it, go back down….

you get the idea XD she did this quite a few times. such a silly girl. lucky was just laying around, probably watching cupid, thinking about how silly she was acting.

i think i need to find some new things for them to play with and explore. she may be a bit bored

Day 4

We only counted 12 today for some reason. Ah well...12 is still oodles of babies

How the Ratty Family is Doing...

Now...I have heard a lot about the parents being mean when it comes to having babies around. Not so with mine. I still handle Lucky and Cupid as easily as ever and can remove the bed of babies without them even batting an eyelash. I have also handled the babies and have not had any problems with mommy and daddy rejecting them afterward.

I have also heard about removing males for some reason but Lucky is a GREAT father. He and Cupid will take turns keeping the babies warm and cleaning them or they will sit, snuggled up next to each other by the little bed the babies are in. It's all extremely adorable.

I also found an extra amazing snack for my rats. Mealworms. Lucky and Cupid will battle it out for one of these. It's only a snack though so one every day or so depending o their size. They smell and are "juicy" messy and too many would probably be excessive protein and fat. I get the live ones. I dont know if i trust died or canned mealworms.

So all in all, all 15 rats are doing quite well. The babies started showing darker patches for marking at day 2 and had hair from day 1. I think I can tell how many will have red eyes and how many black because some of the babies have "black eyes" (even though they are closed you can kinda tell cuz the area is dark) and some dont have them dark. I dont know yet because they are still closed but we'll see.

Day 3

Day 2

Day 1 Pic

I have counted them...

They had 13 babies :) all pink and fuzzy

He's a Good Daddy

Well...it's a bad picture but here is Lucky with his babies. Cupid and Lucky make a good team! The babies are born with hair ♥ so fuzzy and cute...and yet weird looking all at once hehe

Exciting Day

Today March 19, 2010

Sometime before 10:30 am (when i woke up)

Cupid had her babies! I haven't pulled em out yet to check on em but I momentarily counted about 10-11 babies.

Stay tuned for updates and pics!

Silly Girl

hehehe ok this is funny and mean...mean cuz I laughed at her

We have one of these for the rats

Cupid is going nest crazy in there. She tried to go through the round window and got stuck haha her little back legs kicking and scratching at the wood till she finally squeeze through.

110% positive...

Pregnant Cupid

Ok NOW i am POSITIVE Cupid is pregnant! She's very big now and I'm thinking she may "pop" soon :) i've seen pics of other soft furred rats that look as big (or even smaller) as she is and they are 2-3 days away from giving birth. i hope she doesnt give birth in a stupid place like on the top level or the pancake hammock thing they have.

We MAY have a preggo ratty?

Well

I'm not 100% sure but I THINK cupid may be pregnant. Shes been looking a little fatter and wider than usual. She also seems to be in a sort of nesting frenzy. Constantly digging out spaces at he bottom of the cage and running around like mad with bits of cotton and other bedding in her mouth.

I will keep an eye on her body shape and weight. And I'll try to get a picture of her...if I can get her to sit still for two seconds haha.

Love is in the air?

I read somewhere that natal rat males need to actually actively chase the female for better breeding success.

Well....last night those little guys were ALL OVER the place! Jumping around, squeaking, running...I'm assuming this was the er "love dance". Never have I seen them so CRAZY.

And I hope its love! But hey, we wont know till Cupid starts to look like a fat pear.

The pet shop I got my natals from had new litters (pinkies are so cute! and have hair on them from the start) and they also had some natals for $1! I was tempted but later found out those particular ones were SUPER nippy. The shop owners were glad to see how sweet my two were and that they looked happy in a good home.

More Out Time

Everyday, at least once a day, I pull the little rats out and have them crawl all over me and the bed for as long as I think they are happy with it. I put them back in their cage once they start being quick on your hands and become more of a task to handle.

I used to only take them out one at a time because Cupid was a bit crazy but she's calmed down lots and is more manageable. Lucky is now EXTRA easy to handle so if he wanders a bit too far I usually don't worry about him and he usually comes back anyway.

I have 2 shirts on and put them under the top one. They were both in my sleeves and on my shoulders, grooming each other and being generally warm and toasty.

When I tried to get Cupid out so I can put them away, she didn't want to come peacefully! She wanted to continue burrowing into my sleeves and though the layers of fabric. I had to trap her in my sleeve and then basically push her out that way hehe :P

They are also getting MUCH better when it comes to their potty control. I've has tons of out time where I didn't have to clean up a thing! Only when something REALLY freaks em out like someone suddenly opening the door, do they ever leave anything for me to clean up.

Soft furred rats can make super fantastic pets! :)

NOOOO WAY!

I saw a video of a rat swimming in a VERY shallow bath tub and though to myself, HMMM I wonder if my rats would like to swim?

So I put not even an inch of warm water into the bath tub and brought the little fuzzies into the bathroom. I put them into the tub and they began to jump almost clear out the tub! Lucky was just plain NOT HAPPY with the whole thing. Cupid was a bit more tolerant but I could tell she didn't like it much to want to stay.

So these rats don't seem like they enjoy water unless its in a bottle for them to drink. I wont try to get these 2 to swim anymore but I may try with any offspring they have since like I said...Cupid wasn't TOO freaked out.

After the adventure they had squeaky clean feet and bellies ;)

New Bedding

I know...I haven't updated in a while...i'll make up for that :)

A few days ago, I got a different bedding for the rats. I wanted to try something new because they waste tons of food by burring it and I keep giving them food to waste thinking they ate it or something.

I got this Kaytee minty bedding. I was afraid at first that it may irritate their respiratory system but right away they seemed perfectly fine about. They didn't sneeze like when I added new clean carefresh bedding. Also the smell is not very strong at all. It's a light minty smell. It's got random twigs in it (i guess from the mint) and they LOVED to find these and gnaw on them.

Its like soft pebbles in all different sizes and some are green so its PRETTY and the ratties like to move it all around and chew on it.

I'll update again on the bedding after I clean out the cage as far as if its dusty or not. I've been noticing the deeper I get into the bag of carefresh, the dustier the cage is when I go and clean it out.

Size...it DOES matter :P

I took a few pics of my fuzz butts to show their difference in size to each other and their size so far in my hand.

So here is Lucky and Cupid in my hand to show their relative size. They grow so fast haha

Here is a shot to show how much Cupid has grown since December. The first image is now. The second image is what she used to look like compared to Lucky.

Birthdays

I don't know Lucky and Cupid's actual birthday but I can make some general birthday assumptions...if we got Lucky in November, then he was born in October and if we got Cupid in December, she must have been born in November.

They were weaned so maybe about 4 weeks old each rattie.

That means Lucky is about 4-5 months old now and Cupid is about 2-3 months old.

Lucky can be born on Halloween (hehe my FAVE holiday) and Cupid can be born on Thanksgiving (yummy) ♥