From 3 to 30 (a scribble)

so on the 19th of March, i randomly checked Craigslist for rats that need a new home 'cause i was wanting to adopt another one and found a post of some one getting rid of 8 adult rats. one of them had a litter of 7 and one was pregnant. i have vowed never to breed rats and had promised myself that i could have a pregnant rat if ever i came across this occurrence. i did ask if i could just adopt the mother with a litter and that was a no go. all or nothing. i had only 3 lady rats(all a year and a half old) living in my 6 connected ferret nation cages at the time. so i could take on that many just fine. besides i would finally get to raise a litter of my own! so i adopted them all.

i sent my ladies to my best friends house for the quarantine time. poor girls had to down grade to one ferret nation cage.

anyways when the lady and her husband brought the rats and their set up (they lived in small bus bins!!!*cry*). she mentioned that one more rat may be pregnant but that she didn't think so. her son had accidentally put one of the males (a beautiful mostly white guy with black eyes...) in with her for a small period of time. *at this point i am panicking just a little on the inside. the most rats i have ever had at one time is 7 and that was several years ago. but i went ahead anyways. i could not let someone else take all these guys and keep breeding them. i wanted that to end with me. * i preceded to get as much information about the rats as i could. she thought the litter of 7 was about 2 weeks old. their mother was a year old and has had many litters. the pregnant one, three other girls and two boys were about 5 months old. last one older naked male was a year and a half. the old guy was the father of the litter of 7 and the pending litter. the pending litter was due any day to a first time mother.

on the 24th she gave birth to 9 little rittens. by this time the first litter's eyes were opening, i had the two 5month old boys neutered and the third doe was obviously pregnant. she had her litter of 10 april fool's day.

several weeks i spent socializing each litter according to there age. i picked them up each day after day 3. when they were a week old i held them in a pouch next to me while i did things around the house. i did this for longer and longer periods of time. when they opened there eyes i gave them simple toys and varied them often. i started offering them soft baby foods too. here are some videos of my sweet babies...
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all went well until the last litter started eating solid foods i noticed some of them becoming fat. bloated. i soon found out what mega-colon was. hurt my heart. i lost 3 out of the ten. the other 7 seem to be doing well now with no signs of trouble.

i have found many of my little rittens new homes. i think i will settle with 11 rats. each one is so worth every second of effort it takes to keep many many rats.