Critter Nation Cage Setup

I was perusing my photo album and stumbled across this photo.




The upstairs was set-up as a "jungle gym." This was back when I was thinking that if Walter could just exercise, he would lose weight. The more I read about rat nutrition the more I am convinced that Walter is just genetically predisposed to be fat. He's likely related to Zucker rats which are used in obesity research. Sad thought, eh? My rat is fat because he was bred to be fat so that scientists could learn about obesity in humans.

Anyways, I'm thinking about putting them on a low complex carbohydrate diet to see if that would get Walter to lose weight, since apparently that's what works for Zucker rats.

Wow, I blabbed about the "jungle gym" there. We still keep lots of activities in the cage, but we took down the ropes. The rats wouldn't climb on those. I think I need to use shorter and taut stretches of the rope.

Here's downstairs. In this case, it's done up as the lounge (places to sleep but no food)


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NY Ratfest 2012

A few weeks ago, Skip Lee and I attended the NY Ratfest 2012. It's not a huge event, just rat loving people gathering together for a delicious BBQ and to talk rats.
The awesome folk of Mainely Rat Rescue were on hand, and we adopted Sam and Dean from them.
Here's Skip Lee showing me the awesome rat jewelry he won for me during the little raffle they held for Mainely Rat Rescue Raffle. Ain't he great?
But, July is the month for Mainely Rat Rescue's really big Raffle Check it out. There's some awesome stuff being raffled right now.

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GRAND OPENING RittlesNBittles is now open on Etsy

I'm still figuring things out, feels like I've been speckling dry wall, BUT the store is up and functioning.




I'm planning on adding more details to the store, i.e. banner, etc and more items. But, there's my first four hammocks up for sale.

This hammock has the honor of being my first listing.




So, go ahead and take a peek at my my Etsy store. RittlesNBittles

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More ridiculousness

Here's another sleeping rat in the most ridiculous of positions. This is Dean, one of our new boys. And, Rose is using him as a pillow.

Ain't it cute that he's still only Rose size (ok, maybe he's already a tad bigger) He's going to be a hefty squish if he keeps growing like he is.




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Doc Doc being ridiculous

Here is DocDoc (Doctor- named after Doctor Who) sprawled under the water bottle. He hangs out like this a lot, but this time he looked particularly ridiculous. He's lying on a square of rock tile which keeps the cage liner from moving and provides a very cool place to lie although not soft.

I will have to try to get a picture of what happens when another rat wants a drink. Honestly, he won't move. They will be lapping away, standing on him.



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Welcome Sam and Dean

This weekend we adopted 2 baby rats from Mainely Rat Rescue. They are awesome. Mainely Rat Rescue handles rat rescues for New England and New York state and apparently also eastern Canada. Our two new rats are Canadian immigrants/imports.
I found out from their adoption coordinator that MRR (Mainely Rat Rescue) has adopted out 1500 rats in their five years of operation, and during this last year, they adopted out 800 rats. Of course, they only work with pet rats not wild. And amazingly, they do all of this without an actual physical shelter. They have 50 foster homes spread out over New England and New York.
So, here's Sam and Dean...
Sam is a beige, standard ear and coat variegated berkshire neutered male. He's going to eventually be a dominant boy. Over the past couple of days he's been learning to play nice with the full grown girls who are his size but the girls age and experience has been leaving the girls on the winning side of their dominance discussions. It's hard to believe that he had the audacity to even discuss dominance with my little girls. Today, he met Walter who is over four times bigger than him. It was so funny, because Sam was so very very sweet to the monster of a rat that Walter is.

And, his buddy,Dean is a blue split-capped standard ear and coat neutered male. Dean's likely going to end up being nicknamed Flash; he moves so very fast. He's an absolute sweety and has been extremely polite to all of my other rats.

They are, of course, named after the stars of the TV show, Supernatural.
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The Pieced Striped Hammock

Boy, the unintended outcomes aka "mistakes" that haunted this particular project. Well, I learned a lot. And, amazingly, I have some pretty hammocks, too. They just don't all look like what I intended.

First, don't follow my written instructions because I did my math wrong.

Second, if you don't apply the borders in the proper order, the hammock loses the "framed" appearance and is just a series of stripes.

This hammock was pieced as intended.



This was NOT what I intended. Still, a pretty hammock.



Why do I have a toy mouse standing on my hammock?

Because these are my photos for Ebay, and one must always have a cuteTy beaniebaby in order to demonstrate size. LOL.

I plan to also sell on Etsy. And, hopefully, I will have a couple of auctions up and running in the next couple of days.
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