Rat coats: fading and rusting

In response to Shiotadesu’s question about fading coat colours… Berkshire rats (like Flea) don’t fade so much as ‘rust’. Here’s a quick pic of Flea (fleeing from her party, as it were!) where you can see this clearly. It almost looks like I’ve photo-edited together pics of an orange rat and a brown rat! 😀

Flea’s technicolour dreamcoat

Flea’s coat has become a great source of amusement to me as she’s aged, because it seems as though every few months she grows a new patch in a different colour. She has pitch black in the places where she was shaved for her op, rusty red on her bum, white on her tummy, dark brown on her head, pinky-grey around her nose and now patches of grey on her shoulders! Funny little furball 🙂

Siamese rats, like our Coffee, always fade over time, so that eventually only their Siamese ‘points’ (ears, nose, ankles and tail) are dark. Coffee was a Siamese hooded, so while her hoodie faded completely, the thick stripe on her back didn’t. These pics show the progression nicely:

Coffee as a teeny bub: dark Siamese markings

Much lighter (but still visible) hoodie markings

The unusual dark back she was left with (plain Siamese don’t have this)

(That last pic makes me smile… she was such a hooligan, haha!)

And finally, a quick look at our previous boys, Scribble and Muesli. They were both agouti badger huskies, and they faded quite slowly.

Shortly after we got them: dark husky markings

Over a year later: patchy fading

K, that’s that for now 🙂

Paperwork, pedigrees and pics

So! We’ve signed the contracts for our new boys and received their pedigrees. Only four sleeps left till we fetch our newbies from the airport!

The contract is a standard one that all proper breeders will require prospective rat owners to sign. I guess it must be similar to contracts from breeders of other pedigreed animals. It’s simply an agreement between Ninja and I and Wheatfields Rattery, to ensure that:

• we don’t breed with our new bubs
• the rats can be confiscated if we don’t care for them properly, and
• the rats must never be sold to a pet shop – if for any reason we can’t keep them anymore, they must go back to the breeder.

The pedigrees are what you would expect: documents showing the ratties’ ancestry as far back as their great-great grandparents. This time on the pedigrees, the breeder used the names we’ve called the rats, which is cool and very official 😉

Today the breeder took the boys to the lady who’ll be the one arranging the flight. Before they left their only known home, though, they had one last photoshoot:

Moon – Black lightning-blazed vari-berk

Knight – Black Berkshire

Mishka – Russian Blue striped roan dumbo

Vodka – Russian Blue striped roan

The breeder says they’re unstoppably active at this stage, which is going to be a major change for us now that we’re used to the quiet slow pace of lady Flea-Flea 🙂

It’s also interesting to see how my boys are starting to fade already. Some rats are very fast faders, while other coat colours and genes hardly fade at all. I hope they’ll still keep some of their beautiful silvery colouring though!

Anyway, so it’s been a great journey for me taking you through this series of posts on the process of ordering new ratties. I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I have. Little remains for Ninja and I to do other than to thoroughly clean their future home, prepare some welcome-home snacks, and wait to hear what time their flight from Cape Town should arrive in Joburg.

Till then, have a sunny week!

Zest

Happy birthday Flea!

Our dear fluffy Flea turned 2 years old today – or 60 years old in rat years! She’s our first ratty to live this long (though hopefully not the last), so it’s a special day for us. Wish her adorable sister Coffee could have shared the party too.

In time for her birthday we took Flea to the vet a few days ago, to get her teeth trimmed and to give her a vitamin B complex and multivitamin shot. Her teeth needed trimming because she’s slowly stopped eating hard foods (can’t hold them so well in her hands anymore), and as you may know, rats’ teeth never stop growing.

It made our spines crawl to hear her teeth being clipped down with one loud click (just thinking about it reminds me of the feeling you get when you drag your nails on a chalkboard… ugh!), but the vet was super and it was quick and painless. Flea did squeak when she was jabbed for the vitamin injection, but that too was over in seconds, and she seems to have perked up quite a bit since that dose.

Anyway, here are a few pics from her birthday party 🙂

Breakfast: porridge with Ensure and dried blueberries

This morning before church I whipped up Flea’s delicious breakfast: baby porridge with vanilla Ensure (a complete nutritional supplement) and dried blueberries (which she carefully ate around, the fusspot!).

Then later this afternoon I set up a sunny spot for her birthday photoshoot. Since she doesn’t eat huge portions anymore I limited the treats to scattered candied sunflower seeds and some coconut biscuits baked by Flea’s granny AKA my mom 😉

The birthday girl arrives

Flea nommed happily on that biscuit for ages, especially when we moistened it a bit and held it up for her. What a feast!

Ninja and I spoiling our ratty

Happy birthday sweet furball… you’re a blessing from the Lord and we enjoy your company every day 🙂

Rats might fly (and often do)

Flea when we first got her, enjoying a strawberry

Hello all! I’m braving the exasperating tardiness of our problematic internet connection to bring you a bit of info on the process the rat breeders go through to fly our pedigreed rats across the country to meet us 🙂

Our rats’ breeder has enlisted the help of another nearby rat breeder in arranging the flight for us, and I asked her to share a bit of what’s involved…

First, we organise a flight date with the breeder (it’ll be Aug 31st for our new boys!) and she buys the travel boxes. The rats are flown in the same boxes that bird breeders use to travel with birds. The size of the boxes will depend on what is available at the suppliers, as well as how many rats will be sharing a box.

Most breeders will never fly a single rat: only pairs or groups are transported in this way – and of course the kits sharing a box will always be the same sex. The breeder then furnishes the travel box with shredded paper and tissue to absorb urine and for the ratties to hide under if they feel scared. Aww 🙂

You might wonder whether it’s necessary to dose the bubs with some calming meds before the flight. I’ve been told that the breeders generally don’t dose them with anything as most of them don’t need it. That’s the reason they’re never flown alone: they take comfort from being with each other.

And their in-flight meals? The breeders put a little bit of dry food in the travel box, such as lab blocks or Reggie Rat, and often a piece of fruit such as apple or grapes to provide them with a bit of moisture and sugar. Our little newcomers won’t lack a thing!

Recently the laws about flying animals have changed, so a week or so before the flight, our boys have to be checked out by a vet. This is a requirement from the flight companies; animals without a health certificate signed by a vet will not be allowed to fly. The vets check the general health of the ratties: eyes, ears, coat, skin, breathing, no diarrhoea, etc.

Then, on the morning of the flight, everyone gets packed into their boxes and off they go to the airport. The bubs will have to be at the airport two hours before their flight. The airline the breeders use has offices with a pet lounge where animals are put while they wait for flights or wait to be collected, so the rats go here too. Then they’ll be put on their flight and fly for approxamately two hours (almost everywhere in SA takes two hours to get to!). And of course Ninja and I will be anxiously and excitedly waiting to collect them after their plane has landed

Despite all the TLC and preparation to smooth the way, of course some ratties can get a little freaked out by the flight. So (as difficult as it will be) once we’ve collected the boys and driven safely home, the kindest thing to do is to pop them in their new cage and give them time to adjust. But just as we did when we collected our first rats from the airport, Ninja and I will probably pull up our chairs in front of the cage and quietly enjoy the cuteness.

And of course we’ll have to pay special attention to our dear old furry Flea, whose nose may be a tad out of joint that day 😉

Flea now, also enjoying a strawberry

Fluffies!

Our ratties’ breeder has just sent me some of the latest pics of our boys

Without further ado, here are Moon and Knight at 24 days old:

One black tail and one pink one

Knight washing his face

They look so fluffy!

Notice Knight’s adorable white chin

Moon’s beautiful blaze on display

And my boys, Vodka and Mishka:

Just look at Mishka’s huge ears!

Such beautiful silvery brothers

Vodka’s little pink mouth

One look and all resistance crumbles

Curious cuties

Now the countdown really begins… just over a month left until we meet these sweeties 😀

Christmas in July Part 2

The Christmas in July gifts for me and Flea finally arrived in the post! I raced home from the post office to unwrap the box… with Flea’s help 😉

Our Secret Santa (SS) was very generous!!!

Christmas in July 2013

Inside the box we found…

• two small boxes (a pink one and a blue one, for Flea and the new boys respectively) filled with all manner of tasty ratty treats: mini Marie biscuits, choc-coated sunflower seeds, yoghurt drops and rooibos biscuits
• three cute rat-themed decals
• the Ratatouille movie DVD (which we’ve never watched before, shame on us!)
• a fleecy tunnel for the rat cage
• and a stunning necklace for me!

Flea tastes her first-ever yogi

My gorgeous new necklace

Rat treats in a jar with a ratty decal

That was the best fun I’ve had in the middle of winter in a long time

Count me in for next year’s one!

Booking the boys

Sorry to keep you waiting… but here they are: pics of the baby boys at 10 days old!

If you thought the pinkies were cute and the parents were pretty, you’ll love these fuzzies.

Boys from Litter 1

Those were the males born to Count Fleet and Salvia. And these little guys are the boys from Salix and Juniper:

Boys from Litter 2

Such silky babies! I’d take them all home if I could 😉 But of course Ninja and I had to pick just two each…

My choice was easy. I’d been hoping for at least one dumbo-eared boy and one Russian Blue or Russian Silver boy. So I immediately booked the two Russian Blue brothers from Litter 1, one of which is dumbo eared! 😀

My boys

Ninja’s choice was just as instant: he picked the black Berkshire and one of the lightning-blazed boys from Litter 2:

Ninja’s boys

Squeeeeeee! 🙂

And of course we’ve already picked out names for them. Since mine are Russian Blue rats, I wanted Russian names… so the standard-eared boy is going to be Vodka and the dumbo will be Mishka (meaning ‘little bear’ or ‘teddy bear’ in Russian). Mishka is my first ratty to break away from my usual choice of ‘foodie’ names for my rats (Muesli, Coffee, Vodka), but I like the way it works with Vodka.

Ninja immediately dubbed his boys Night (the black Berkshire) and Moon (the blazed boy; if you look closely you can see a sickle-moon shape in the white blaze on his head). I did warn Ninja, though, that I’ll probably end up taking liberties with those names, because I find two-syllabled pet names are easier to call out.

But anyway, are these guys nunu or what?

Flea

Flea sitting in her dinner

It’s been a busy few days for us, just tying up loose ends in life, so I just have time for a quick picture post on Flea. She’s healing well and going strong. Not sure if you can see it clearly in the pic above, but patches of fur are growing back where she was shaved for her op. For this pic she amused me by sitting right IN her food bowl, haha!

Nesting

This has been a fairly mild winter for us in Johannesburg so far, but when Flea starts feeling the cold in the evenings and missing the warmth of her sister, she doesn’t waste time in tearing up the paper in her cage to fashion a comfy little nest. I can’t wait until the new boys come and we can introduce some companions for her.

Pimpin’ the cage

We’ve been collecting items to start pimpin’ out the rat cage, not just in preparation for the new bubs, but for Flea to enjoy right now. The black and grey objects in this pic are very clever plastic ‘Sputniks’, which can be hung from the cage roof or stood on the cage floor. The blue and yellow tube is a ferret tunnel that will comfortably fit plenty ratties squishing together!

An alien has landed

Flea took to the Sputnik straight away. Sweet girl 🙂

The waiting list

After much discussion and debate, Ninja and I have finally decided on a way forward with our rat owning. As I’ve mentioned before, we were concerned that Flea might get lonely being an only rat. It really is preferable to keep rats in pairs or groups, but of course life isn’t always as clean-cut as that…

Flea enjoying some oranges (Please note: never feed oranges to male rats!)

At first we considered getting a neutered male of Flea’s age to join her as a companion. After inquiring with our fellow rat club members and discussing it at length, however, we realised we may as well begin the process of getting the new young male rats we were hoping to get one day when Coffee and Flea had passed away.

And so we’ve taken the first step in purchasing a pedigreed fancy rat (or four!) We’ve contacted a reputable breeder (the same lady who raised our amazing agouti badger husky rats, Scribble and Muesli) and asked to be placed on the waiting list for four boys from two litters she has planned – two boys each for Ninja and I.

We feel ready, after having owned five rats in total so far (I’m also counting Mizu, our very first rat from years ago; a little petshop rescue who opened my eyes to the joys of rat owning), to now have more than one rat each. No doubt it’ll be quite an adventure! 🙂

The idea is that we’ll get four young boys and keep them separate from Flea at first. Then we hope to have at least two of them neutered as soon as they’re the right age (between 2 and 6 months old, I believe). Neutering has several benefits apart from allowing males to live with females, including avoiding testicular cancer and reducing excesses of aggression. Often it keeps the boys’ fur softer as well, with a chance of a bit less oily ‘buck grease’ forming on their backs.

Once the month-long ‘safety window’ has passed for the neutered males to be rendered infertile, we can begin the process of introducing them to Flea. If all goes well with that and once our budget has recovered, we’ll hopefully get the other two males neutered so we call put all our ratties together. It’s something we’ve never done before, but many other rat owners have done it successfully, so we’re going to give it a try. At least then our old lady Flea will have some toy boys companions to cuddle with 😀

It’s all sooooo exciting! And I thought it might be interesting to blog about it as the process unfolds, for those of you who are curious or who may still be a bit wide eyed at the idea of going to so much trouble for rats! 😉

Brave little warrior

Our Berkshire ratty Faith (better known as Flea) had two tumours removed from her little body this past week. Because one of our previous boy rats (Scribble) passed away during such an op, Ninja and I were very nervous about sending Flea in.

But she made it through, and now Flea has proven to be quite a fighter! I’m so proud of her

Been through the wars…

She was understandably grumpy for the first few days. Just like us, she’s been suffering from the loss of her sister Coffee this week. From what I can tell, she’s also been in considerable pain from the op… and on top of it all I’d venture to say that it’s been an affront to her dignity that she was shaved for the op 😉

But she’s recovering well, eating a lot to get her strength back up, and fighting her meds with a big show of squeaking, hiding and resisting. She’s finished her course of painkillers and antibiotics now, so in a few days’ time she’ll go back to the vet to have her stitches removed. (Not that she hasn’t already tried to remove them herself!)

What a determined little ball!

In a way I feel that Flea’s personality was sometimes overshadowed by the exuberant forcefulness of her sister. Now that we’re spending time with her alone, her own sweet nature is really shining through.

We’re in a bit of a pickle now, though, because ratties aren’t meant to live alone. They need the company of other furries to keep them from getting lonely and depressed. Plus it’s winter now, so Flea probably misses the warmth of a shared hammock.

Our options are limited at the moment. We only want male rats from here on in, so we can’t get her another female as a friend. And we’re also not ready to book our hoped-for baby boys until it’s clear that Faith is getting very old. So the only option we really have is to adopt an adult, neutered old boy to live with our single lady.

For now we’ve decided to wait until Flea has completely recovered from this op, and also to see how she’s doing by her 2nd birthday, in August this year. It’s only two months away (still a long time for a rat, I know).

In the meantime we’re taking the best care of her that we can. We’ve upgraded her cage with some interesting new toys and I’m boosting her diet with the healthiest ingredients I can find. Plus we’re giving her daily runs outside the cage (which will last longer once her stitches are out and she’s able to climb and run like before). I’ve also been spending extra time with her napping next to me for warmth and companionship, and in the evenings I position a hot water bottle nearby to keep her snug in her cage.

She sure is a brave little warrior, and her hopeful spirit is encouraging to me 🙂