Moss and Tully and a Vid
October 27, 2009
After adding the nine new guys’ pages to the website I had a thought today and realised that Tully and Moss hadn’t been added, so they now have their own pages added to My Rats.
Here are a few of their photos from the photo shoot as well:
Tully:
Showing off what an explorer she is!
Moss:
Also off exploring!
I also have a video of Rosemary playing her favourite game with mu hubby: Harrassing for choccie drops!
Goodbye Mustard – Mar 07 (?) – 11/09/08
September 15, 2008
I found Mustard passed away in the cage on Thursday. She’s the first one to die at home and there was no sign of illness or anything, I was so shocked. She was just stretched out in their nest under the shelf with her eyes closed. I guess she just went to sleep and didn’t wake up, which is quite comforting as it doesn’t seem as if she suffered.
She came to live with me in July ’07 with Pepper after being advertised free to a good home as her original owner had got 2 kittens and no longer wanted her rats. They were being kept in a hamster cage and had to be manually extracted from a tube, they were that unused to being held. They settled in with the other 4 girls with barely a squeak. Mustard never liked being held and would wriggle like mad when I got hold of her but she was friendly and liked to clamber about on me, so was never a problem to catch, I just waited for her to come to me!
Mustard was always a skinny little girl, only getting over 300g in her last month or so. When she first arrived she could get out of the Tommy, so I had to mesh up the cage until she grew. I will always remember her for being a livewire, for being the first one out to play and always starfishing even when the rest were all asleep. She used to sit on my shoulder and jump 2 – 3 feet through the air to the playpen wall so she could escape for a wander round the other side. Sometimes she made it as well! And if she didn’t she just came back for another go! She could climb up the playpen wall as well, with one front foot round the side of the door and the other and her back feet propelling her up the wood. She was so light and quick.
Bye bye baby girl, we will miss you and your mad antics.
None of the photos capture her that well, she was never still for long enough to get good ones! Here are three videos of her, one from when she first arrived and two later ones of her showing off her agility skills! I think they sum her up better because she is on the go.
The Freddy
August 10, 2008
I moved Sugar, Charlotte and Treacle into the Freddy yesterday, so they’re now back in the rat shed. Let them out to play with the rest of the girls today and apart from a load of bum-sniffing there was no trouble. Had to remove Sugar and Charlotte from the aviary to put them back in the Freddy when play time was finished. I’m sure they were wondering what I was up to. I just don’t think their wounds are healed enough to risk any roughness with the other girls. It’ll probably only be about a week though and they can all go back in together.
Sugar’s wound has opened up slightly right at the bottom and there is a fairly deep looking hole there, but it’s clean and not hot or anything so i’m just keeping an eye on it at the moment. I tried to get photos of all the wounds but Treacle’s and Sugar’s are in such awkward places I need someone else to hold them and Steve’s away and probably wouldn’t hold them firmly enough anyway! Here is Charlotte’s though. Pretty impressive I reckon.
And here’s their cage. (Note the Sputnik, it’s an XL version that Savic have recently started making):
Charlotte and Treacle enjoying the Sputnik:
And here’s a little vid of the girls exploring when I first put them in. They especially made a point of climbing up the bars onto the shelf instead of using the ramp, just to prove they were feeling fine!
Treacle the nutty nest-builder
July 21, 2008
I think i’ve said before that every so often Treacle goes mad and spends ages carting bedding about to build a massive nest. She was doing it again the other day and I finally got a video of her. I took the vid Thursday early evening and by bed time the whole cardboard box had been shredded and added to the nest. And yesterday she added food to it as well!!
I don’t know if it’s just her personality or if it’s hormonal, but I do know that as long as the girls live with Treacle they won’t go short of a big comfy bed! Here she is…
Hello, my name is Luke…
March 26, 2008
….and i’m a mismarked agouti hooded male fancy rat. My favourite thing is coming out to play. I’m always the first to the cage door when them other lazy boys can’t be bothered to move and I love to climb about on our side of the rat room, especially getting up on Mum’s desk and scent marking whatever she’s doing at the time. My second favourite thing is snuggling in bed. Jools is my new bestest friend and i’m nearly always snuggled with him. We like to sleep in our litter basket or in a hammock (even after it’s fallen down!).
I am a bit of a sickly rat – i’ve been to the vets twice since Mum bought me home at the beginning of the year. Once for a urinary infection and then for a respiratory thing but I don’t let it get me down and even climb out of my carrier to say hi to the vet!
Here are some photos of me:
off exploring
hmm…. what’s this?
Ooh! Food!
It’s a hard life. Chilling during free-range on top of the cage with a good view of everything.
And a vid of me: Luke playing
The rat that can climb walls
February 23, 2008
As you may know I used to have a perspex divider in the rat room to keep the rats in their play pen area. A little while ago I fell over the perspex and broke it, so I had a smaller piece that I used to patch up the gap I made. Eventually, however, Mustard figured out she could jump onto the top of the smaller bit, hop up on to the top and escape. Here is a vid. Not only does it show both Mustard and Pepper escaping, it also shows how well rats can jump and also how rats use their tails for balance.
Pepper and Mustard escaping (video)
Mustard is a mischief. She is very little, she has never reached the 300g mark and i’m sure it’s because she’s so active she just burns off her food straight away! She’s always the first one at the door, even when the rest are asleep in the middle of the day, she’s there climbing the bars. When she’s out she doesn’t stop and if anyone’s going to work out how to escape it’s her. It used to be Treacle, but she’s got a little bit less active now she’s older, so Mustard is now chief escapee.
To get over the problem of her escaping, Steve built me a wall out of chipboard. It’s about 5ft tall with a door and perspex windows in!
The first thing the rattys realised was it was wood so they could chew it:
They managed to do this in about a week! Steve was not impressed. Then Mustard realised she could climb it:
Mustard climbing the wall (video)
So Steve put a length of perspex up the wall so she can’t get a grip of it and a bit over the hole, so that foiled that rat great escape! I really do think they’re contained now, but Mustard has been poorly this week so i’m sure she’ll be back to finding escape routes when she feels 100% again!
Synchronised rat boggling
February 4, 2008
Tinks and Fogwatt were curled up in bed with Sugar yesterday and suddenly both started boggling at me. First Fogwatt, then Tinky, almost like one was setting the other off. Anyway, by some miracle I actually had the camera with me, so I videoed them. Here it is: Synchronised rat boggling. Enjoy!
Doughnut Boggling!
January 20, 2008
I finally caught Doughnut boggling on video. She often lies like she is on this vid, chilling in a hammock, nose against the wire. So she can see what’s going on without having to move too far! Generally I can get her to boggle at me several times just by talking to her but as you can see Mustard climbed on her head and kind of spoiled the moment!!
Enjoy! Doughnut boggling
Christmas stocking videos
December 30, 2007
Just a short one to point you in the direction of the Christmas stocking videos.
Here are two if the big girls. I did the first one through the open door – which is why there’s a bit of me pushing Pepper, Treacle and Mustard out the way while they escape! You can tell who the ‘foodies’ are in that cage! I wasn’t going to put it up, but I love the bit when Doughnut flattens Tinkerbell. It just shows how arguementative these girls can be and how quickly a fight is forgotten! The second one is through the bars so you’ve got five of them squabbling over it!
And this one is the ‘baby’ girls, who aren’t really babies any more! It’s only short, because the memory card ran out!
Enjoy!!
New vid and happy girlies
December 22, 2007
I forgot to upload this video when I filmed it. It was taken the day before I delivered Cinnamon and Doughnut to their new homes, so the last time the girls got to play together 😦
Here it is: Enjoy! Baby girl rats playing (age 10 weeks)
I also have to tell you this little story – I went into the rat room yesterday and Charlotte, Tinkerbell and Doughnut were curled up in their bed together. Tinks and Doughnut had their heads out the door, half asleep and when I said hello to them they both led there and bruxed and boggled at me. They were just so cute and Doughnut proved rats can boggle with their eyes half shut. They were just a picture of ratty contentedness!
Northern Lights Rattery - Rats in the Highlands 