et another day where I have no real idea what to do in this section.  Yesterday I was at a loss, but fortunately that penis size thing appeared, and as I worked it got longer and longer... Um, the article I was writing got longer as I found more links and pondered the situation more fully.

Half the time I do these essay portions my main thought is to vary my wording to I can get a different big script-y letter in.  It seems like about 50% of the time it's "T" or "S" or "I".  Managed a "Y" today; isn't it pretty?

I've been meaning to write something about my pet rodents, so might as well do so today.  Currently I've got 6 of them, 2 older females, 2 young females, and 2 young-adult males.  The older females I've owned for their entire lives; both were born to other rats I owned, 18 or 20 months ago.  The males I've owned for about 4 months and 2 months, though they're about the same age and mellow temperament.  The two younger females are both juvenile in age, and I've had them for about a week.

I had bred all my own pet rats for probably 8 or 10 years, but it seems that both of my females are too old to have babies now, so I had to get a new young female.  I got one the day after I returned from E3, and she was a bit too young apparently, since my two older females would not tolerate her at all.  Attacked her if she were near them, and she was not much older than weaned, probably about 1/12 the size of the adults, so there was just no way to put them in together.  She was very sweet though, calm and liked to be held and such, had obviously been hand-reared to some extent.  Unfortunately she got some sort of eye infection or tumor after the second day here, and went from looking like a cataract one night to having her eye bulging out and glassy the next day.  It looked like it was swelling up, very icky.  I had a 15 day return on her though, so was able to take her back to PetCo and get another rat.  I decided to get 2, since they like to have another near their age to play with, and got a couple that were a bit older, though still at least a month from being old enough to breed (not that they wouldn't breed now, but they're too small to have more than a few babies, and be healthy during the process).  For whatever reason my 2 adult females accepted these two immediately, and they've all been in together since.  The young ones scoot and scamper and race about, while the adults sleep like veal.

I only keep females for pets, since they tend to be less sleepy (at least until they get old), are softer and smoother (males get rough, longer guard furs, and are sort of oily), and I just generally prefer the company of women to men.

One problem with these two is that hand-reared ones are far tamer and calmer, and it really does make a difference in the first month or 6 weeks of their lives.  Rats grow up very quickly; they are born blind and mostly hairless, totally helpless.  They nurse and mew and roll around in their nest for about 10 days, by which time they can sort of walk a little, but still have their eyes closed.  Those generally open up around 14 days, sometimes a little bit earlier, depending on how big the kits are.  If there are fewer of them (say less than 8) or the mother is really large and full of milk, they'll mature more quickly.  The amount of milk they get really is directly-proportional to how fast they grow.  I had a female years ago who only gave birth to 2 live babies, and with just those 2 to nurse, they grew like rockets.  They were the size of 4 week rats at about 10 days, and were almost weaned by 2 weeks, eating solid food as well as nursing.

As for normal litters, open eyes around 2 weeks, start to walk and crawl out of the nest around 17 days, which is when they'll start eating solid food.  They like things like Cheerios or bread crumbs for their little sharp teefs, and will continue to nurse until around 24 days or so.  Usually females just don't have any more milk then, though I've seen some who kept nursing a little bit until a month or so.  Most baby rats are weaned by 24 days or so, like it or not, though they're still very small, smaller than you really ever see them for sale in a pet store.  Once the babies get to about 2.5 weeks they grow like sponges in water, increasing in size seemingly overnight.  Especially if you feed them lots of canned corn and pasta and such like I usually do.  How much the mother gets to eat makes a difference as well, since they seem to have a nearly 1 to 1 ratio of food intake to milk production.  I've raised probably 50 litters of rodents over the years, maybe even more than that, so my observations of them can be taken more or less as gospel.

Baby rats are really where it's at.  They are so cute in their furry little hordes.  Generally a litter is around 10 or 12, though I've seen up to 23.  More than about 18 is bad, as they are very tiny, and they grow up slowly.  Female rats only have 12 nipples, so when there are that many more mouths than teats, you always get runts, giants, and lots in between, and it's not uncommon for a couple to die around a week or so, if they aren't able to get their share of milk.  There's really no way to govern it, the mothers always stand on top of this squirming mass of hungry mouths with some trepidation, and look rather uneasy.  It's something like lowering a cow into a wading pool of piranha.

Babies by around 2-3 weeks are strong enough and hungry enough that they'll actually trap the mother, all clinging to her poor nipples, and she'll be unable to extricate herself until they've had something close to their fill of milk, at which time they release their death suction somewhat, and she can lurch free, scraping babies off like barnacles on the side of the nest box.  It really is full contact, at times I'll have to pry babies off of her to get her out, and they cling like little limpets.  Female rats must have some tough nipples, for they'll stretch out literally an inch with a baby hanging on one.  Takes about 2 weeks after nursing before they go back to normal, which is to say nearly-undetectable in her belly fur.

So the two younger females I have no are pets/breeders, at some point.  Any kits they have will be mellower and easier to handle and play with then they are.  Neither are hostile or anything, they're just hyper and not used to the big hand, so tend to scurry madly about, rather than letting me pick them up w/o a struggle.

Since rats only live about 18 months, I tend to have several at a time, usually about 5, consisting of maybe 3 generations.  Often females die in childbirth, so having spares is essential.  But more than 4 or 5 rats just eat too much, easily a can of corn a day, along with various other meal scraps and their dry food. I just waited too long to breed either of my older females this time, hence the younger ones.

This was sort of a dry introduction, I'll put in some funny rat stories in the future, that will make for more entertaining reading.  I'm getting a digicam for my b-day in a few weeks, and I'll post some shots of them romping.  The boy rats are very funny when they get out, they just chase each other around and wrestle constantly.