Pet Forum / Mammals / Rats / June 2004

Hello

I have just acquired a small rat that I found in my patio. I grabbed a
old of it just before my Siberian Husky and my Sheltie/ American Eskimo
mix dogs did.

I believe it is a girl. It has a very light cinnamin/ biege color head
and back stripe with the rest of the body being white.  The eyes are
like a dark black with a hint of redwhen light hits them the right way.

For now she is in a 3 1/2 story hamster cage with food, water bottle and
a big hamster home to hide in.( I use to raise hamsters and gerbils in
the past and have kept all the stuff just in case I ever needed them
again)

So far she seems very friendly. She will smell me and let me pet and
stroke her with no problems. She just is scared to death of being picked
up right now. I'll give her some time to get use to her new enviroment.

I have named her Ratisha. She is the first rat that I have ever owned. I
know alot about other rodents though. I have raised mice, hamsters,
gerbils and rabbits.

I take in abused and neglected animals and rehabilatate them. Right now
I have 2 dogs, 2 cats, 2 ferrets, 2 parakeets, 3 rabbits, 4 fish, a
gerbil and my new rat.

I'l lbe reading through all the posts here to learn anything I can from
them. Hopefully some of you can help me if I ever have a question that
wasn't previously covered on here before.

I'll try to post a picture on here in a few days of Ratisha. Right now
she is about 4 inches long without counting the thick tail.  I'm not
sure how old she is or how big she will get. I will transfer her into
bigger living courters as she grows though. Right now I'm just afraid
that she might be able to sqeeze through the bars of a ferret or rabbit
cage, so she'll stay in the hamster cage for now.

Sincerely,
Laurie



~A dog has a very short life. Their only fault, really~