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Leela and Garrus had an interesting moment yesterday. I had the cage doors open and was scritching on Mordin up on the shelf, and Leela put her paws up on the bottom tray to peer in. Garrus ran up and started sniffing her. Then they both just stood there for a while, looking at each other. Garrus finally walked away, and Leela started meowing at me, but it was a funny little tableau for a while as they tried to figure each other out 
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Jul 21, 2012 15:58
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Superconsndar posted:but I dunno the source of his headspot so I'll have to do a couple of test litters before I know if it's safe or not. If it is, I can be rolling in BEWs by Christmas I made an interesting acquaintance the other day re BEWs. He's been breeding rats for years, as well as showing them, and also judges shows (UK). I emailed him about possibly getting getting some babies from him as pets, so he invited us round to see his rats. Apparently a couple of years ago the National Fancy Rat Society decided that the existing BEWs were no good, and that BEW would be withdrawn as a variety for showing. As a replacement, people - ie the guy I met - are making Ivory rats. These are pretty much white rats with black eyes, not marked rats without any markings a la BEW. The rats were very pretty, even if the adult I played with did shed white hair all over me. Didn't get many pictures unfortunately. We're on the waiting list for his next litter.     Blurry picture of one of the adult does The adults had the most amazing white whiskers, really cool. Also here are some pictures of our two rats being stupid as usual.   
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Jul 21, 2012 16:30
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I thought ivory was just the ~show name~ for a BEW here?  By the way, if anyone in the UK is after a new cage, there have been some returns lately at Equine Canine Feline. Some of their cages got delivered very lightly damaged, and my friend managed to snag an Aurora 600/Large Atalanta for just £100, and it usually costs £200 or so. We're waiting to see just how much 'minor damage' it has, but assuming it's the same as the aurora 450 that he got before (that is now in my basement, awaiting future rats) - just damage to the legs that doesn't affect how it works at all. So tldr to say, keep an eye on cages on ECF for ones marked *CLEARANCE*. There is an Aurora 450/Medium Atalanta on there at the moment for just £75, and that usually costs £160 
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Jul 21, 2012 16:38
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Best rat picture.
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Jul 21, 2012 18:41
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I gave them some fish today and it was still quite hot when I put it in. So the brave rats that grabbed some kept nibbling, putting it down, nibbling, putting it down, and were generally annoyed that the food was being so difficult. Pic dump~     
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Jul 21, 2012 19:56
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killerwhat posted:Apparently a couple of years ago the National Fancy Rat Society decided that the existing BEWs were no good, and that BEW would be withdrawn as a variety for showing. What's the deal with that? Did someone pull something shadey with breeding, or did someone important keep losing, or what?
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Jul 21, 2012 20:47
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What genes = ivory? All white rat with black eyes that isn't based on blazing/spotting = British rat genes are weird
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Jul 21, 2012 20:56
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Jul 21, 2012 22:35
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Well, I guess that nice moment was a fluke - Leela leaned in to investigate Garrus tonight and he bit her on the nose  Not hard enough to do any damage, but she sure did protest.
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Jul 22, 2012 03:26
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Rat stackin'  Yes hello Folly I see you! 
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Jul 22, 2012 17:29
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Gary looking like an airplane. The boy had a bad seizure on Monday. In the morning we heard him squeeking and spasming, before starting to run into the walls and then falling down the cage. :'( It was ridiculously scary but nothing bad has happened since... Arnold tried to avoid being around him as well for a while, staying on the other end of the cage, but they're both okay and active now, and cuddling up together again.  Arnold likes his new tube a lot.  One of those rare moments where they'll cuddle up in my lap together instead of just trying to dig into the sofa again and again.
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Jul 23, 2012 00:58
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Arnold looks confrontational, like he's just daring you to try to invade his fort.
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Jul 23, 2012 02:40
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sweek0 posted:Gary looking like an airplane. 
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Jul 23, 2012 22:52
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Need some help with rat problems... I have a 7mo to 1yr old male (not sure - took him in after a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend didn't want him anymore) that is super sweet, social, and very affectionate. A few weeks ago, he had what could best be described as a "rat panic attack" in the middle of the night - I heard a ton of commotion that woke me up, checked up on him and found him huddled in his little house with the entire cage looking like a tornado hit it. I chalked it up to rat nightmares or something... Yesterday he had another episode, this time I was there to see it. I was playing some Skyrim (in headphones - there we no loud noises), and I saw him just go berserk and start thrashing around and bouncing off of cage-walls like a little tasmanian devil. After ~10 seconds he stopped and huddled in the corner making little whimpering sounds. He remained in the corner, in a catatonic state, not responding to sound/touch/treats for like half an hour, and slowly returned to his normal state. Whats going on with my rat?
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Jul 23, 2012 23:14
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OldMold posted:Need some help with rat problems... Considering what sweek just posted and having no background in this stuff whatsoever, I'd say potentially he's having seizures? Either way I'd take him to the vet.
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Jul 24, 2012 00:37
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Yeah it sounds very similar, OldMold. Ours is also a male, about 1 year and 3 months now. Do a search for "rat seizures" on Youtube, you'll find a few videos showing what it looks like. Then search for "cute rats" to make yourself feel better because it's sad to look at. I still haven't quite figured out what it means or what can be done about it. It looks like some rats are fully healthy otherwise and live for a long time with it, others aren't so lucky. Gary had another one yesterday, although not as bad this time. He didn't squeek and he didn't run into the walls or fall down the cage. He spasmed a bit and then just sat still and looked very confused as to what happened. We just wrapped him up in a blanket and cuddled him. I've also been making the cage a little safer just to avoid any big falls, just by strategically placing their hammocks and ledges. sweek0 fucked around with this message at 10:46 on Jul 24, 2012 |
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Jul 24, 2012 10:39
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Mordin tried to steal my wedding ring just now He had the band in his teeth and his paws on my hand and was pulling with all his might. I need to set up some pictures of Garrus eating a dried grasshopper, he gets the most intense look on his face. Unfortunately their cage is in a corner where there isn't a lot of light, so it's hard to get photos. Maybe I can convince him to sit on the cat tree and eat his grasshopper.
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Jul 24, 2012 15:37
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RazorBunny posted:I need to set up some pictures of Garrus eating a dried grasshopper, he gets the most intense look on his face. Unfortunately their cage is in a corner where there isn't a lot of light, so it's hard to get photos. Maybe I can convince him to sit on the cat tree and eat his grasshopper. Have you ever tried them on live bugs? That'd be hella 
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Jul 24, 2012 17:32
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Fraction posted:Have you ever tried them on live bugs? That'd be hella My boys absolutely adore eating live mealworms that we feed to our axolotls. They bite off half of it then lick all the gooeyness out, then finish them off. It's both disgusting and cute at the same time.
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Jul 24, 2012 17:42
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I think if I was going to feed them something live, it would be something like mealworms or night crawlers that can't get away too easily. I've had enough problems with insects in my house, I don't need to be accidentally releasing more. Although, I suppose something like a cricket would be okay if I released it in the bathtub and let the boys loose in there to hunt it down.
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Jul 24, 2012 19:10
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sweek0 posted:Yeah it sounds very similar, OldMold. Ours is also a male, about 1 year and 3 months now. Do a search for "rat seizures" on Youtube, you'll find a few videos showing what it looks like. Then search for "cute rats" to make yourself feel better because it's sad to look at. Hmm, videos on youtube of seizures are quite different - the seizing rats on youtube are more stationary and have spasm fits for a little bit. I saw full on "holy poo poo my rat world is ending" berserk behavior, it was quite scary to witness.
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Jul 24, 2012 21:01
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Superconsndar posted:What genes = ivory? All white rat with black eyes that isn't based on blazing/spotting = It's apparently albino with black eyes. And hah, Atmus, I have no idea what politics went down over the BEWs. I'll have to ask him next time.
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Jul 24, 2012 21:51
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killerwhat posted:It's apparently albino with black eyes. But that's not what albino means  For most mammals, there's a couple of different genes that affect how they look pattern-wise. There are genes for color, and there is also genes for where that color will be located. They're not mutually inclusive or exclusive. You can have the code for colors, but if you don't have the code to tell you where the color goes then it won't show up. Albinism means that the animal doesn't produce any melanin pigment. So even if the critter has crazy awesome zebra stripe genes, it won't produce any pigment to place in those stripes, so they won't show up. Albinism will also affect the eye color; you can't have a black eyed albino. There are other ways to get a white rat that do allow colored eyes, but albinism isn't one of them.
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Jul 25, 2012 04:31
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Yeah it sounds a bit weird, but versions of albino make siamese/pointed rats so it's obviously possible to have some pigment in the presence of an otherwise albino rat. If albino gene normally affects the eye pigment, then perhaps the black eye gene is dominant over albino but only expressed in eyes.
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Jul 25, 2012 07:56
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GenericOverusedName posted:But that's not what albino means I don't know the specifics of their claim that an ivory rat is an albino rat with black eyes, but what your describing is a classic Black Eyed White- a classic BEW is a rat with certain spotting genes that just happens to have no markings. The color genes are still there, and the rat is usually just a very extreme patched/dalmation/variegated/masked/capped/etc rat, generally also with one of a few blazing genes, that just happens to be so extreme that there no spotting on that individual animal. I think the reason they're identifying it separately from classic BEW is BECAUSE it's not just a marked rat with no spots. It's the same reason Pink Eyed Whites, Red Eyed Whites, and Ruby eyed Whites are all not considered true albinos- they are all actually extreme dilutes of insert-color-here. True albinism, while it looks the same, is only present in a few lines outside of laboratories. The Lady at SRR has been in rats since the dawn of time and is one of the more knowledgeable rat ladies, I haven't spoken with her in years but she *usually* has her poo poo pretty straight.
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Jul 25, 2012 11:42
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Jul 28, 2012 18:14
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Here are some photos of the foster girls goofing around in their new bed, donated by a lady who adopted one of their sisters! It's so cool, she made it herself. The top is a small square attached at the corners to a larger square, and the larger square is in turn attached at the sides to an octagon. It produces a honeycomb-like bed with 3 layers in which they can sleep. I might ask her if she has a pattern for it.    
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Jul 29, 2012 03:02
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The girls are so hard to get decent pics of.  IMG_5281 by cerebruminc, on Flickr
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Jul 31, 2012 19:20
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I was in the pet store the other day to grab some crickets and up front by the register was the saddest looking rat I've ever seen. Against my better judgement I asked the girl if I could hold him. When I picked him up he went completely limp and just went for the ride, it was very cute. Eyes, nose, breathing all clear, no outward injuries or lumps, healthy nails and teeth, god dammit. I handed over my $5 adoption fee. Now I have Hector, and I love him. He is the luckiest rat in the world, I had room for one more rat.
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Jul 31, 2012 22:51
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drat, my phone posted before I was done, and won't let me edit. Hector is super shy, but super sweet. I've had him a few days now and we've graduated from "holy poo poo I don't know you!" To, "so about that awesome soy bean thing you got there, I guess I'll just sniff it a little, yeah ok its not poison" slowly but surely he's acclimating. A question, can some rats just not ever get along? Or is it a matter of how much you initially introduce them?
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Jul 31, 2012 22:59
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Some rats wont get along with other rats, but its pretty uncommon. Intros are important but I almost think personality is more. I've only seen one rat that didn't play nice with others and that was fixed with neutering.
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Jul 31, 2012 23:08
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So, I have been trying out a different feeding schedule than I started with and wanted some opinion/education. I started out filling their bowl every morning with their daily allotment of lab blocks and noticed the one that isn't shy at all taking and hiding all but the one block that the shy one grabbed before darting into the house to eat and hide in shame like she was an adult man eating flour and water paste with his hand. I didn't want the non timid one to eat all the food up and make the shy one have to live on the cheerios and fruit I treat them with so I started feeding them directly from my hand 2-3 times a day/one block each and still treating them whenever I feel like it or notice them sitting in the corner looking at me dreaming about cheerios/apples/bananas directly from my hand. Is this a good thing when my hand is the only source of food? I have already got them to climb the wall of the cage and stick their mouth out the top whenever they want a cheerio and I think it is funny, but I don't want to keep feeding them like this if it will hurt them in any way. I also like the fact that I have come up with a basic feeding schedule for them that gives me lots of time that I can handle them without them making GBS threads on me since the food has worked its way through them already.
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Jul 31, 2012 23:25
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Olive Bar posted:drat, my phone posted before I was done, and won't let me edit. Hector is super shy, but super sweet. I've had him a few days now and we've graduated from "holy poo poo I don't know you!" To, "so about that awesome soy bean thing you got there, I guess I'll just sniff it a little, yeah ok its not poison" slowly but surely he's acclimating. He is a lucky rat to have you . Some rats won't ever get along, but it's really pretty uncommon, and for males there's neutering if it's a serious issue.OlDirtyBehrmann posted:So, I have been trying out a different feeding schedule than I started with and wanted some opinion/education. I started out filling their bowl every morning with their daily allotment of lab blocks and noticed the one that isn't shy at all taking and hiding all but the one block that the shy one grabbed before darting into the house to eat and hide in shame like she was an adult man eating flour and water paste with his hand. I didn't want the non timid one to eat all the food up and make the shy one have to live on the cheerios and fruit I treat them with so I started feeding them directly from my hand 2-3 times a day/one block each and still treating them whenever I feel like it or notice them sitting in the corner looking at me dreaming about cheerios/apples/bananas directly from my hand. Is this a good thing when my hand is the only source of food? I have already got them to climb the wall of the cage and stick their mouth out the top whenever they want a cheerio and I think it is funny, but I don't want to keep feeding them like this if it will hurt them in any way. I also like the fact that I have come up with a basic feeding schedule for them that gives me lots of time that I can handle them without them making GBS threads on me since the food has worked its way through them already. If all they're getting is lab blocks and treats, you might want to read the OP of the thread – they really should be getting daily fresh vegetables. If feeding them 3x a day works for you, then it's not really a problem.
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Jul 31, 2012 23:32
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OlDirtyBehrmann posted:Is this a good thing when my hand is the only source of food? While it's good for them to associate you with food, I'd be wary of doing it longterm. Iirc, rats need food available for constant grazing. You'd probably be better using straight grains rather than lab blocks (and they're better for the rats, too); your rat can't hoard away a hundred individual pieces of oat or whatever.
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Jul 31, 2012 23:33
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They do get plenty of grazing snacks from me since I sit at the computer next to the cage for hours a day(my kitchen table is a workbench for vintage moped parts. Not a good place to sit and eat at). They do occasionally eat veggies, by the way. It really depends on what I'm eating as I usually give them a little piece of what I am eating (I am a largely lowly processed, fruit, nut, light eater) and I work one mile from home so I see/feed them when I am on lunch break too. I'll probably try out a homemade grain mixture when I get through this bag of lab blocks. I would switch it up sooner but I've heard no complaints from the rats yet and they do get other stuff regularly so it is real easy to keep using them. I like the way they react when I pick up the bag too. As soon as they hear the sound of the bag crinkling they run around all excited and practically jump up and down at the doorway.
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Aug 1, 2012 00:07
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I know that solid wheels are safer for their feet, but I swear to God they manage to get crap in it every ten minutes and it rattles around and makes me nuts. It kind of defeats the purpose of the nice, quiet Wodent Wheel.
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Aug 1, 2012 02:28
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OlDirtyBehrmann posted:They do get plenty of grazing snacks from me since I sit at the computer next to the cage for hours a day(my kitchen table is a workbench for vintage moped parts. Not a good place to sit and eat at). They do occasionally eat veggies, by the way. It really depends on what I'm eating as I usually give them a little piece of what I am eating (I am a largely lowly processed, fruit, nut, light eater) and I work one mile from home so I see/feed them when I am on lunch break too. I'll probably try out a homemade grain mixture when I get through this bag of lab blocks. I would switch it up sooner but I've heard no complaints from the rats yet and they do get other stuff regularly so it is real easy to keep using them. I like the way they react when I pick up the bag too. As soon as they hear the sound of the bag crinkling they run around all excited and practically jump up and down at the doorway. If one is hoarding the lab blocks though, I'd be questioning how much the other is grazing on overnight. Their response to the bag is just a Pavlovian response. You could easily enough recreate their reaction by feeding them from a tub instead
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Aug 1, 2012 08:18
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I just got an email with a picture of a pile of gross furless rat babies from the breeder I'm getting rats from I feel like she's homing them pretty young though. I don't know if this is a picture from today or not but the pick up date is August 19th. If they don't even have fur yet wouldn't that only make them like three or four weeks old? What's standard for this kind of stuff anyway? I've never gotten from a breeder before, my last (and only, so far) pair came from a PetsMart in my hometown. They died in sort of mysterious circumstances, with no warning and relatively close together (no sickness, one of them was living with my roommate's pair of rats for a couple weeks before she died and both of them are still fine). I realized I had no way of knowing how old either of them were, or really anything about them, which is why I want to always get breeder rats from now on. But I don't have a ton of options and I don't really know that much about them anyway. From what I've gathered rat breeders generally aren't all that good anyway but if anyone has any experience with them I'd love to hear about it
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Aug 2, 2012 22:17
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redjenova posted:I just got an email with a picture of a pile of gross furless rat babies from the breeder I'm getting rats from They're fertile at 5 weeks. The sexes are separated at that age. A lot of breeders like to keep rats with same sex littermates until 6 weeks, but leaving at around 5 weeks is normal. Some breeders will do 4 weeks if the babies happen to be big and fully weaned by then. 3 weeks shouldn't happen.
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Aug 2, 2012 23:35
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Thanks! I guess I should probably ask the breeder also. If she's giving them out so young would it be better to just avoid getting them from that particular breeder altogether? e: as far as I can tell the litter pic was taken and sent today, could I post it and someone with a more experienced eye possibly judge how old they are? I guess I might be over-nervous about this, I'm just excited and want everything to go well! mareep fucked around with this message at 00:57 on Aug 3, 2012 |
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Aug 2, 2012 23:46
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