As you can probably tell, we are still all very much in love with our animals and their intense cuteness. What can we say? Below are the most recent and most cutest (no, i can't really say that, but they're damned cute) additions to our menagerie. The top picture is Dexter, then Alfie. Alfie's a huge pig. He's been known to completely empty a full food bowl in one sitting. Probably because I picked'm. I always get the food-motivated animal. Ella and Eddie are the same way. And, just like Baby, Dexter is a little spun, but very cuddly, not scared of much, and motivated more by the opportunity to explore than anything.
These boys are known as Russian Blue Dumbo Rats, and it's really amazing the difference in their personality from the girls. The girls are your average Fancy Rat, but it's their gender here that I think really makes a world of difference in their personalities. Girl rats are the actors, the doers, the movers and shakers, and they rarely hold still. If you have food in your hand and they know it, it won't be in your hand for long. With two healthy girl rats, one is constantly searching for new things to amuse them in their cage environment, and change in the cage design is necessary for their survival. They are also much happier to be free range, and really very much enjoy a good sprint along the back of the couch on a regular basis. But these boys, as well as boy rats I have known previously, are the exact inverse of all the above. While they are also smart and interested, and therefore need new toys relatively regularly, and decent free range time, they are also very much slower moving animals, with a sort of dopey calm about them that would never even remotely cross the eyes of the girl ratties, even when they are being cuddly (which Baby does relatively often now). They seem to enjoy comfort in all its guises, including soft things, little nooks and good food. While they do bop around the cage, it is not with nearly the same ferocity that the girls practice, in which everything gets relocated and shavings fly everywhere.
These boys were bought at a pet store that kept them on pine shavings in a very tiny little aquarium. When we first brought them home, they were sneezing with every breath, and we were worried they were victims of the dreaded Mycoplasma that rats are very susceptible to. However, after almost a month now on carefresh, with a little bit of aspen sprinkled in, in a well-ventilated, warm environment, they seem much happier, and we're hoping it was only sensitivity to the pine that made them so sneezy.
In any case, our next pet mission is to teach Ella and Baby, who are more used to us and quicker moving, to play rat basketball. First, we'll have to move, which will be interesting, and then we'll have to build a court, and then take the steps listed in the link above. I'll just be working and coming home all summer, with no school to drag my mental direction in a certain direction, so I'm quite looking forward to this plan. Bahaha. Look it up on youtube, too, this whole rat basketball thing. It's a sweet deal.
These boys were bought at a pet store that kept them on pine shavings in a very tiny little aquarium. When we first brought them home, they were sneezing with every breath, and we were worried they were victims of the dreaded Mycoplasma that rats are very susceptible to. However, after almost a month now on carefresh, with a little bit of aspen sprinkled in, in a well-ventilated, warm environment, they seem much happier, and we're hoping it was only sensitivity to the pine that made them so sneezy.
In any case, our next pet mission is to teach Ella and Baby, who are more used to us and quicker moving, to play rat basketball. First, we'll have to move, which will be interesting, and then we'll have to build a court, and then take the steps listed in the link above. I'll just be working and coming home all summer, with no school to drag my mental direction in a certain direction, so I'm quite looking forward to this plan. Bahaha. Look it up on youtube, too, this whole rat basketball thing. It's a sweet deal.
