Ratablog

Introducing...our rat family

RIZZO

Rizzo was the rat the Humane Society volunteer thrust into my hands at adoption day. She was an adventuresome girl, exploring where ever she could. She loved her straw nesting ball and tormenting Krycek, and was active despite mammary tumors until the last days of her life. She passed away in January 2003.

KRYCEK

Krycek was Rizzo's sister. She was much less outgoing and a bit aggressive...the two ended up in separate cages when their fighting resulted in bloodshed...but with enough yogies and peanuts she came around. She built spectacular nests and kept a beautiful cage, which she guarded from Rizzo. Numerous tumors caught up to her and she passed away in December 2002.

PINKY

The first on the next rat generation, Pinky is a double rex with no fear of anything. As a baby she frequently crawled along the underside of the cage top like Spiderman, and outside the cage she made dramatic leaps across the room. Her sheer mass has made her give up some stunts, but she is still the most outgoing and curious of the rats.

LEATHER

Leather is more lady-like. Nesting is her specialty...she will quickly reduce any paper or cloth in the cage to shreds to hide the food dish or line the platforms of the cage. As a baby she suffered from seizures, a condition she mercifully outgrew.

CINNAMON SCHWARTZ

Cinnamon Schwartz is a beautiful berkshire with a massive appetite. Her cagemates will stash food, play with food, forget food if distracted, but Schwartz is motivated primarily by eating and sleeping. Unless you have a treat to tempt her, she is the shyest of the girls.

CURLY

Curly was part of the third rat wave. He and Bob were research rats from the behavioral studies classes at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Curly is Pinky's soulmate; he is an active old man with no fear of anything except Bob. He lives with the three girls, a situation that seems to agree with him very much.

BOB

Bob is my grumpy old man. When he lived with Curly, he'd hiss and bare his teeth at his rambunctious roommate. When age started catching up, Bob got his own one-level cage so it would be easier for him to move around without losing his balance on ramps or having to drag his failing back legs. Now he has a stuffed pig to cuddle and a fleece hat where he eats his Toasties in peace.

ME

Not a rat, but here I am being used as a rat jungle gym. I go by the screen name "Abita" on Rat Palace, although Abita is actually the dog's name. The girls, Bob, and Curly, are "my" rats in the sense that their vet bills are in my name.

ABITA

The real Abita, our old beagle. She is rather jealous of the rats (or of the attention that they get when by rights all attention should be paid to her), but has shown only curiosity toward them. That earned her a bloody nose once when she decided to sniff too close to the boys' cage.

---

KONO

It's my turn to introduce my boys, the Rink Rats: Kono is the Alpha of the cage. Fitting, since he was named for Steve Konowalchuck, captain of the Washington Capitals. As Alpha, his job is to get first choice at most food offered in the cage, and to beat up the other boys when they challenge his Alpha-ness. As a youngster, his favorite game was "Stash the Same Lab Block Over and Over." Kono is Leather and Metro's brother.

METRO

This is Metro, and you can see how much he and Kono look alike. Truth be told, I'm not 100% sure this isn't Kono. I'm lucky in that there's an easy way to tell the difference between the two of them: Metro has a small black patch right on his rump, while Kono doesn't (you can't see his rump in this pic, but Metro's white blaze is also narrower then Kono's, which you can see in the picture). I know of other people who have to flip their rats upside down to tell the difference.

OLIE

Olie is Calle and Cinammon Schwartz's brother. He is the biggest of the rats; while all of the boys are overweight, Olie, at least, looks big, rather than fat. It's the difference between the Fat Man at the circus, and an NFL offensive lineman. When he and Metro were about three months old, constant fighting between the two of them forced me to neuter all of the boys so they could live together.

CALLE

Calle is The Rat Who Would be Alpha, Kono's constant threat to his Alpha-ness. He was actually the smallest of my boys; his appetite, however, has now made him my fattest. Combine his girth with his constant smile, and he seems to be a jolly little rat.

WITTER

Witter is an alone rat, and was adopted in May when he was abandoned at the vet's office. He was diagnosed with mites (at the same time we were treating our rats for lice); his previous owners didn't want the expense and hassle of treating for mites and told Dr. G to put him to sleep! Dr. G instead called us, explained the situation, and asked if we would like him. After not discussing it for about a half-second, I said "Yes!" and we flew over to the office. Witter is a very sweet, very loving rat, who greets me with hand licks when I open his cage door. However, he does not get along with the other boys, and is caged by himself.

THE OTHER ME

Here I am, with Pinky the Rat crawling down my arm. I go by the screen name "Publius" on Rat Palace and the RFC Forums. I also have two guinea pigs, Harley and Teddy (and I should note I adopted Harley the same day Abita adopted Rizzo & Krycek). The Rink Rats are mine in that I pay their vet bills.

Housing rats

I think when it comes to rat houses, bigger is better. They are smart animals, and spending day in and out in a small, unvarying box can't be to their liking. You can use solid-sided containers or cages, but I'd recommend cages for the improved ventilation. If you have to use solid sides, like an aquarium, make sure you clean the litter religiously to prevent the buildup of ammonia, which is severely irritating to their respiratory systems.

People seem to have strong feelings about bedding. Some swear by Carefresh, for example, where others hate the smell or are allergic. Some rats seem to have sensitivties as well. About the only bedding consensus is that pine and cedar are bad: the phenols can damage the lungs and possibly the liver. With Rizzo and Krycek, I just used newspaper (whole sections of paper; they shredded it themselves.) I tried Carefresh first, but they threw it out of the cage. They'd been on newspaper at the shelter, so I guess it was what they were used to. For the rest, we've used Carefresh and Cell-Sorb. I think the Carefresh, being softer, looks more comfortable that the harder pellets of Cell-Sorb, but I think the Cell-Sorb has a bit better odor control. The rats don't seem to care. Bob, since he has a bit of trouble walking, gets his cage lined with old t-shirts or receiving blankets, changed every day.

I have personally become a big fan of Martin's Cages. When we expanded the rat population last fall, we ordered a couple of R-680's (the "Rat Lodge"), one for the girls and one for the boys. They are big enough for hammocks and toys, and when the rats want to be apart (generally when there's some particularly good food around) they can go off to separate corners and avoid each other. Bob and Curly got their own 680 when they arrived.

Bob, though, started having trouble with is back legs, and he seemed to struggle a bit with the ramps. Worse, his balance started going too, and I saw him fall off the high shelf. He was fine, but it scared me...off to the pet store I went for a Super Pet cage. Super Pet cages seem to be mostly geared toward guinea pigs and rabbits (thought I've seen a multi-level ferret cage that would probably be great for adult rats; the bar spacing is too big for babies). Now Bob's on one safe level.

Curly got to move in with the girls to an upgraded cage: the Martin's Skyscraper, a full three feet high. It is the best of the cages: Curly's wheel fits on the floor, and they have a tube and a hammock in addition to the ramps and shelves.

Accessorizing the cage probably depends upon your rat. A huge favorite of our rats, especially Bob, has been a child's fleece hat with a chin strap. Oddly enough, the made-for-rat cuddle cups, which are so similar to the hat in function, have just been torn up. Some rats enjoy hiding under a plastic igloo, some turn the igloo over or ignore it. Curly is the only one who runs on the exercise wheel. (If you do get a wheel, make sure it is large enough, and avoid the ones with open wire-rats can get their legs or tails caught and injured.) The rink rats and the girls love hammocks, Bob and Curly don't. Rizzo loved the straw nest ball (especially once it got ragged and stinky. She once chewed through a garbage bag to retrieve one I'd thrown away.) Leather and Calle seem to prefer constructing their own nests out of old t-shirts and paper, much like Krycek did.

I use Critter Fresh enzyme cleaner to clean the cage pan and plastic accessories, and the cloth stuff goes in the washer and dryer. Here's a washing machine hint that it took me too long to figure out on my own: many hammocks and tunnels have removable chains for hanging. Actually removing the chains before washing saves a lot of time detangling threads from the chains when the stuff comes out of the dryer.

Whatever you do use in the cage, remember that rats live to chew. Don't put anything in the cage that's toxic or that might be dangerous as they gnaw, and don't give them anything you don't want destroyed.

Not a grand opening of the new page

Well, I was hoping that September 1 would be the kickoff for our new Rat in a Box page. It has taken a lot longer than we expected to type up all the content, though, plus I am realizing that my HTML skills are just a bit out of date.

Still, we're paying for this server space, so let's just get started. Curly was out peeing on my keyboard just yesterday, he's so ready. (He actually did pee all over the keyboard, the little monster! The keys are a little sticky now, but it does still work, at least. He also took several more bites out of the keyboard tray portion of the computer desk.)

September will be a big month here regardless of whether we finish the web page proper. Pinky, Leather, Metro, Kono, Cinnamon Schwartz, Calle, and Olie will all celebrate their first birthday. When Bob and Curly came to us last March their foster mom told us they were about two and a half, so if it is six months later, that makes them three, cause for a super big celebration. And we don't want to leave Witter out...he came here at the end of April at "a little older than a year," so we've decided that September marks his first-and-a-half birthday.

Why not celebrate the half-years too? For that matter, we could celebrate on the quarter. What the heck, we'll make every day rat celebration day.

Wait, it already is. ;-)