Apologies in advance, this is a long one!
Well, I've a few rodent loves I'll admit and rats weren't the first but there's just something about that really hits the spot for me.
As some of you know already I used to run a rescue for some years alongside some friends of mine and we mostly took in rats. Before that I'd already gotten the crazy rat lady nickname at my local vets because of my own pets. At one point I owned 26, males and females, in a mixed neutered group and they all lived together in a huge Furet XL tower cage. We lost some to old age, some to ill health and as the rescue started we didn't replace our own when they wandered over the bridge.
The rats we have now are largely the ones left in rescue when we closed due to behavioural issues or because I felt they were too old to rehome and it wasn't fair. So they stayed with us. I can only attach five photo's and haven't sorted out my photo sharing thingy yet so apologies not everyone has a piccie.
Mini and Cooper:-
Two big lads who were handed in as their owner was moving and couldn't take them along. We suspected they'd been fighting too and when they started squabbling with us we had them neutered. They were 18 months old when they were neutered and are now over two and a half and just now looking a bit frail. There's a photo of Mini (white), Cooper (roan) and Grant (champagne hooded) attached as they met briefly during one of Grant's failed intros. Grant's story is below.
Carlos:-
Lives with the two boys above. He was already neutered before coming to us. We had a call to go to an area in Bournemouth back in October 2014 to collect what we believed were 30 rats but turned out to be 80. Due to escapes we had several pregnant females and there were 120 rats in total as a result. We collected a mixture of old (18 months) down to 3 week olds that day in the biggest rescue we'd conducted. I have to say the owner was in genuine need and terrified they'd end up being euthanised if the rspca had been called. Once we got them counted and sorted several other rescues took some for us so we didn't have to cope with all of them. Long story short Carlos is the last boy here and one of the original first rats purchased by the owner. He is now a little over 3 years old and feeling it but he's still happy.
Grant:-
Poor Grant was handed in having been purchased as a pet and then going on to develop serious behavioural issues. Depite being neutered, Grant has not been able to live with other rats although we've gotten him to at least be a little happy about being handled by people. He stayed with us and happily lives on his own.
Castor:-
A black berky and pictured below, Castor was one of a multitude of baby rats we had in all at the same time early in 2014 and is now two years old. Accidental litters, he was one that was just a bit too jumpy to be picked and sure enough needed neutering to calm him down. He lived in a larger group with two of his brothers who have sadly moved over the bridge already but is now living with our own boy markiplier.
Markiplier
The pretty spotted roan looking lad in the photo, Marki was an impulse Pets at Home purchase. He and his brother Captain Sparkles, looked a bit too little and a in need of a vet so we bought them and took them home. Sadly, Sparky had some suspected immunity issues and we eventually lost him to multiple infections and pneumonia at just 6 months old. Marky had a hard time socialising so we neutered him but even then couldn't safely live with adults boys. His luck was in when the baby boys came into rescue and he went to live with Castor and his brothers. Marky will be three in September.
Bob and Murray
The Siamese twins! These two are breeder boys from Zappa rattery. Well bred rats have a totally different mindset about them and these boys were no different. We take them to educational displays where they greet the public and sit on the odd shoulder. 100% bomb proof they've been roped into baby sitting a particularly nervous lad featured below. The boys will be two in September.
Sherlock and Watson
During my time as a vet receptionist and auxiliary nurse, I was asked to bring home a stray. A lone baby rat found in a lady's back garden. Unfortunately, if rats are taken from mum too young and kept on their own they never learn the complex social language that (particularly male) rats have. It can make it dangerous to keep them with adult males especially if you aren't careful. To ease him in, we found another lone baby rat from Twilight rattery and introduced them first. Work had suggested Sherlock as a name for the stray so Watson seemed natural. Sherlock is the striped roan in the photo below with the burmese bottom poking out from under his chin. They two went to live with the siamese boys whose patience proved invaluable.
Unfortunately, now a year old, Sherlock's hormones caused gradually more and more issues and he's recently been neutered. We're likely getting a couple of girls soon so if he can't be put back with his buddies then we'll be trying him with the girls.
Sorry for the hugely long post! I hope you enjoyed reading everyone's story