One of the sweet PEW girls we took in had a secret we discovered; she was pregnant from a wild rat. She soon gave birth to ten babies. Only two survived due to following the recommendations of the vet for treating lice (she was sure it would have no affect on the nursing kittens but was wrong).

But the bright thing that came out of the experience is that my husband suggested we keep all of them (both the two babies were female).

I had wanted to name one of them niffler (a black furry creature from the world of Harry Potter who likes to dig), but my husband really liked the names Hoot and Annie. Can you tell he used to be a professional musician? So I used "niffler" as the collective name for the kids.

It was really interesting watching how the two adults interacted with the babies, especially Aunt Abagail. Right form the start she took on a supportive role without interfering. If I remember correctly, it was Abagail who built up the litter into a big mountain, not the expectant mother Priscilla. Then when the kids were born, I left everyone in the same cage. Abagail was very careful to stay on the far side of the cage and only ventured near the nest when the babies got old enough to start crawling around.

Then Abagail became an extra mother. Both she and Priscilla would make sure the kittens didn’t stray anywhere they weren’t supposed to. If one of the little guys started to climb up the side of the cage, they would yank them off and throw them to the ground, quite roughly I thought.

I was careful to hold the little guys every day, but they were still a little wary of me. But the thing that helped tame them the most was them watching Mom and Aunt Abagail. One time in particular they were reluctant to come out of the cage. But as soon as they saw the two adults climb onto my arm unafraid, they started venturing out.

As they got older, the roles changed and they began power-grooming Mom and Aunt Abagail (payback time!). They were both really intelligent. Once I tried to hide a bag of chips from our favorite mexican restaurant by putting them in the only place no ratties had gone; on top of the curtain. They were only up there that once, but the next time everyone was out, Hootie climbed up the curtain.

They loved the exercise wheel, unlike both adults who never ventured in them. As soon as the little guys opened their eyes they began climbing in and running. When they got older, they loved to flip each other over by running and then stopping. The record is four revolutions of the wheel with them clinging to the side.

They also loved playing the "ride ‘em cowboy!" game which meant climbing up the side of the cage, grabbing the outside of the wheel, and riding it down. Yee-Haw!

One of my favorite memories of the whole family is when I would let them out every night to run around the room. I wore a button-down flannel shirt (unbuttoned) over a T-shirt with both tucked in. I would open the door of their cage and all four of them would climb along the mesh of the door and jump into the cave of my shirt between the T-shirt and the flannel: one, two, three, four! Then I would sit on the floor and they’d leave to run around.

Then, alas, one-by-one they decided they were too old for that. First Priscilla stopped coming in the cave and took the elevator instead (climbed up to the top of the grotto and slid down between the back of it and the wall.) Then the others all decided to the same. Sigh, I really liked cave time.

When play time was over, I would call to the room “Bedtime! Time for all little ratties to go to bed!” They would come running from the far corners of the room and climb up my leg. It’s not as remarkable as it sounds since they knew they would get a treat for going to bed.

But over time they stopped coming, even for a treat, and I had to go find them for bedtime. Just like real children!

They would also steal things and carry them away to behind the bookcase (hence the term packrat). They even tried to take a pen right out of my hand once!

Priscilla and Abagail will always hold a dear spot in my heart, for they were my first pet rats and introduced me to how cool these critters as pets are.

How they came to live with me is a little unusual.

My husband jokes that there must be a sign up on door that only animals can see, “Stray Pets Welcome.” Once an escaped cockatiel found his way to the telephone line in front of our house and flew down to me when I started talking to him. I was able to return him to his owner who lived a few miles away. Another time I found an albino ring necked dove on the way home.

So I guess it isn’t that surprising that one day when I came home from work, my husband reported that there was a white rat in our garage. I knew enough from doing many trap/releases of wild rats living under our deck to know that a white rat isn’t wild.

I went to the garage and started talking to the clutter. Priscilla came out immediately. She didn’t come up to me, but she was calm enough to explore unafraid.

I caught her almost immediately in a hav-a-heart trap. She came over to my side of the cage and let me pet her through the bars. The next day I spotted another white rat hiding under our deck and coming out to eat bird seed that had fallen from the feeder. I was also able to catch her.

When Priscilla was reunited with Abagail, the scene would have warmed any heart. She was so excited and started kissing her all over her head. It was clear she was saying, “My best friend!!! I thought I would never see you again!” (Actually, we think they were mother and daughter).

My husband agreed that we could keep them, although he confessed that rats had always ‘creeped him out.’

A few weeks later, it dawned on me that Priscilla might be pregnant. The day after I told my husband that this was a possibility, she gave birth to ten babies (the father was a wild rat). But that’s another post.

After building the ratty grotto and annex, the biggest problem turned out to be how to keep the shelves clean. My ratties did not get the litter box concept at all, which isn’t too kind on the nose. I tried fabric liners (more…)

When a week after we took in a couple of stray rats and one of them had 10 babies, it was clear the cage I bought from Craig’s List wasn’t going to cut it. (These were tame white rats that had ended up outdoors, but the father was probably a wild rat).

Not knowing anything about rat ownership, I did a lot of Googling. I found this really cool website that describes how to build a "cage" out of a bookcase: (more…)

If you search in forums for exercise wheels, there are lots and lots of different opinions about which are better. And I’ve discovered as I’ve researched, different wheels are definitely better for different pets.

So here is my review of exercise wheels (more…)

One shortcoming of the Ratty Grotto is that the shelves are too shallow for an exercise wheel. And Hootie has a lot of enthusiasm (evident with all her escape attempts). So decided to build an extension. My ulterior motive is to have a place where I can video them testing out different exercise wheels and post my findings. (more…)