About 2 weeks after getting Adam and Steve, and having built them a great big cage with lots of platforms and ladders and hammocks and tunnels, which they really like, I caught 'new rat fever', and wanted to get some more rats. At first, I thought of getting a male rat, having it neutered, and calling it Lilith, to join Adam & Steve in the cage of Eden (for those who don't immediately get the reference, Lilith, in some mythologies, is considered the first wife of Adam, who left the garded of Eden/paradise once she realise she had free will and could do as she pleased. After that, god made Eve - or Steve.) Then I reconsidered, thinking about the risk that being anesthesized poses to such a little creature, and the potentially hefty vet bill, and looked in the Trade & Exchange for female rats instead. I found a few people who were giving away rats, or selling them, and rang up asking about genders, colours, if they were breeders or just had babies from their pet rats.. etc. Found someone who was giving away their rat babies (6 weeks) for free, not too far away from my parent's place, so I could pick up the new rats next time I visited my family. They told me they had two females, and so I prepared the small cage, and came up with some names - David & Jonathan (to stay with the gay biblical theme, and the trend of crossgender names), and started anticipating my new rat babies - without neglecting the darlings I already had, of course. The day came to pick them up, and along with my Dad to hold the cage while I drove, I went to get my new babies. What happened, and what I ended up with, wasn't quite what I expected. The people who were giving away the rats were firstly keeping them in TINY cages (30x20cms and 30cm high for two adult females - whose fur was not shiny and glossy
at all, and an even smaller cage for a bunch of baby males!), and they only had one female baby left, not two, like they'd told me they'd have for me - until they mentioned (and sounded embarrassed and ashamed) that they had two more in the shed outside, but "they're not quite right", they said. I asked if I could see them, and they were cute confident little rat girls - it just so happened that one of them was missing half of her tail, and the other one was missing half of one of her back legs. But they were both friendly and confident little ratties, and I was so appalled at how they were all being kept and treated (keeping the little ones in the dark cold shed just cause they were crippled! how mean!!), and so I just had to take them all three. The only real dilemma this left me with was that I now had one more rat than I had names for! But that was soon solved - the little black hooded rat with only 1/3 of her tail left was christened Goliath, because she was the biggest of the three and seemed like a little bully, and the smallest of the three, who also has half of her left back leg missing, is called David - what is quite amusing is that David bullies Goliath just as often, pinning her down and 'powergrooming' her. That leaves Jonathan, who doesn't have any limbs missing, but does only have 19 digits - her back left foot only has 4 toes (the vet suggested a possible birth defect due to inbreeding). All three rat babies are normal, healthy and confident rats, who now reside in the big cage with the older ladies, and aren't hindered by their slight disabilities - even David, the tiny 3-legged baby, runs and climbs all over the cage, and doesn't get pushed around by the others. Jonathan's a little shy, but getting better, and Goliath's a cheeky little rat who almost always gets her way - unless Adam or Steve get fed up and show her who's the boss in the rainbow cage! |