Sal Nicholson , another
co-founder of Quite Software .
This is
my page, and I'm going to tell you something about our pet rats.
None of that PostScript nonsense here. This is a picture of Wolf,
our only rat at the moment. You can't see from the picture, but
he is hooded - with a white body except for his head and a dark
stripe down his back.
The Christmas rat
Last Chrismas, I decorated many of my Christmas presents with individual paintings of the Christmas rat. He was modelled on Wolf, partly from memory and partly from his reluctant sittings. There were around 20 in all. There are now half a dozen on the Christmas Rat Page. Don't miss it!
Life with the patter of 68 tiny paws was eventful to say the least,
but the story of how we got them in the first place was just as
amazing too. Or maybe not when you consider the circumstances
-
'Fresh or frozen?' asked the man in the Vivarium, when we first
enquired.
'Two girls, you say', he muttered disappearing into the depths
of his shop. Unlike some other pet shops, he was able to sex them
accurately.
'These are the only three girls I have right now.' I was hooked:
an all white one, a brown hooded one, and a very frightned
brown agouti - all brown. We took all three (suckers!)
The phrase 'only three girls' should have rung bells, but it didn't,
knowing that with rats kept as snake fodder, he wouldn't have
bothered to separate males from females.
Anyway, just short of 23 days later, Gloriana (the white one)
and Spider (the brown hooded) gave birth just a couple of days
apart. Cobweb (the agouti) I was relieved to say, had not been
subjected to any kind of saucy behaviour whilst at home in the
shop.
It was difficult to be certain that two of them were pregnant
at first, but the emerging pear shape and rapid weight gain soon
convinced Aandi - I was in denial, until they gave birth.
Between them, they had 17 babies, though two were dead at birth.
We found one of them a good home, which left us with (including
the original three), 17 rats to look after.
Though not wanting that many originally, I can't imagine now
not having been through that experience. Watching the two
mothers build and repair their separate nests, suckle the nearest
babies at hand and, best of all, take each other's babies from
under the other mum's nose!
When they were small, the rats would try to fit together into
the smallest possible space. This is three (or possibly four)
fitting into one small food bowl. Shifting them at dinner time
was sometimes quite a challenge!
I have just joined the
Please send me email
with your comments on this page!
One visitor wrote:
This morning I was at work reading the comp.lang.postscript newsgroup,
and by nightfall I had two rats. You can probably guess the train of
events. I spent a good hour at work reading rat pages I found from
yours, and after work, I shopped for rats, and went to Home Depot and
bought materials for a cage. I got two rats on the way home - no stores
had any fancy rats, so I got a tan one and a black one, both with lots
of white. They are small males. I have named them Raster and Vector.
Last modified: 26 June 1997
Remember this page is now being maintained
at
http://www.quite.com/personal/sal.htm.
How we got 17 rats without really trying.
More about rats
There are a few other rat pages on the web, with stories and pictures.
We could keep a list but there is already a good one with
the catchy name
Recreation:Animals, Insects, and Pets:Rodents:Rats
at yahoo.
Don't miss bclee's rats!
London & Southern Counties
Mouse & Rat Club, so visit their page. I probably won't be exhibiting
for some time, though - Wolf is far too handsome - it would be embarrassing
to win all the time!
I'm interested to know how many people have visited - you are
number .
