Then we received two bouncy, trusting little darlings and found out what great pets they could be!
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We used to think rats were good pets even when we only had three partially tamed
second hand castrates. Then we received two bouncy, trusting little darlings and found out what great pets they could be! Back to Matmor's home page (English) |
Sandy at 14 weeks
Ada 5wAda was a big girl from the start and remained so during the kitten period. She's a likeable girl.
Rosalind 5wRosalind was easily recognizable from a larger chest spot than any of the other kittens. For a while the chest spot was heart shaped. She crept into my heart by cleaning my nails and licking my fingers from an early age. She is currently on loan to a rat owner with an elderly doe in need of company for the remainder of her days.
Mischief 9 weeks.
top eared, standard coated Red eyed devil born 18.07.2012.
This rat used to be staying with HeleneH on a lease contract. Mischief came here to give birth to the Famous Brits litter and stayed on with most of her daughters as Helene has no use for her in her further breeding plans.
She is a quiet, unassuming rat, contact seeking but a little shy. Mischief and her two brothers come from an inbred group descendant from a trio of rats given to Flaxholme stud from René Bastiaan in Holland. She was easily introduced to my castrated bucks and has adapted well to the change of environment.
Samiel at 7m
At 7 months he came here for evaluation with his brother. He had turned into a huge buck with very coarse fur and a wider head than one would guess from the baby pictures. Samiel seemed to enjoy the change of scenery. Although he started out as a much more people friendly rat than Faust, he was often a bit stiff when handled. Here he was more relaxed. For the sake of his brother it was deceided that he would remain here. Anita still has the right to breed from him.
Samiel is father to the Famous Brits-litter. Although he was not tested at introductions before he fathered the litter, he got to meet my castrated bucks afterwards. Both outside and inside the cage he was perfectly amicable at 8 months and never lifted a hair. He is a lovely alpha. Currently he shares a cage with my castrated buck Wesen only.
Aureus 9 weeks
Aureus at 7m
Aureus is a lovely and friendly boy with a compact body and wide head. He settled easily after mating and gets along well with his cage mates.
Guiness 9 weeks
Skat two months oldAt 6 months he was definitely not a baby anymore. He behaved well during a first meeting with two baby rats (guests) weighing around 85-110g. However, when they were all put in a clean cage Skat wanted to assert himself. No further attempts at introductions were made as the kittens had a cage mate that disapproved of adult rat smells on the babies. At 8 months Skat and his brother Wesen had a two week stay in another rat home. This was clearly not Skat's idea of a nice holiday. He became possessive of food, fluffed up his fur and started producing buck grease in abundance. Even though he is a perfect pet at home he was castrated for his own good as a second holiday was looming up. Fortunately he handled the second holiday stay very well.
Skat currently lives with his brother and my female rats. After castration he was easily introduced to adult females. The kitten intros have been slightly more variable. He has been fine with the females, but slightly rougher on the buck kittens. This was mostly because the kittens took him for a female and insisted on following him around in order to try to suckle from him. His father and uncles that used to share their cage are now dead. Skat was overweight but otherwise healthy at 16 months. Apart from occasional respiratory grunting noises there have been no signs of disease.
I could not resist the names Skat and Wesen for Skat and his now deceased brother. Skat sounds like the Norwegian word skatt, which means treasure, treasured. While I was stroking Wesen and trying to get to know him I asked myself: What kind of small creature have we here? Creature, being can be translated to the Norwegian word vesen. When I discovered that there was a fix star called Wesen (same pronounciation in Norwegian) he could not be called anything else. Collectively they became known as SkatteVesenet, which means The Internal Revenue Service. Nothing was safe from them: Skat found the dirt under my finger nails, and Wesen was always looking into my mouth, ears and nostrils. After castration they received the call names Rest-Skat and U-Wesen. Restskatt is the opposite of a tax return, and Uvesen is a feral animal... These names are rather the opposite of how they behave, though.