Gender Change?

After Ricky visited last week, he headed back to Pasadena for dinner with his family. Around 5:30PM, I received this phone call:

"Uh, hey, I think there's something going on with Noodle."

"What do you mean? Is she okay?!" <-- me thinking its cancer

"No no no, she's all right, it's just, we think she has a thingie."

"You mean..."

(Ricky's mom heard in the background) "It's a penis!"


I then went through the film I had taken of Noodle, trying to find any proof of her (him/its) anatomy that we never noticed before. For those not versed in rat anatomy, there are a few major differences between male and female rats:

• There is not much space between female rattie parts, and
  
• There is a very large space between male rattie parts, which allows for their scary (ok, I think they're scary) rat balls. Scary.
  

I have never been a huge fan of male rat genitalia, and I say this because I know people who are. After cuddling many large squishy male rats, I also can say that I rarely notice anything unusual, as they are so big nothing really sticks out.

However, when not in my hand, I can still see them. Icky.

This phone call let to a panicked review of rat anatomy and me scouring the message boards about a similar situation. Ricky reported to me that Noodle did a) have a larger-than-normal space between her female parts and b.) at least 4 nipples, which is the way you can tell immediately that a rat is female. Or so we thought.

Noodle went for her vet appointment on Saturday, and the vet told us that there was a 75% chance that Noodle was female and that there was a 25% chance of her being a he, either because she/he was very slow in developing or was younger than we thought, and because male rats can have nipples. Hooray!

So, here's to hoping.

Rattie Visitors

Ricky came up to York earlier this week, bringing with him Peaches and a molting Noodle. Peaches is still her squishy self and Noodle looks like a demented baby bird/balding hyena.

Ricky and the Noodle.



Hewwo?


Yep, I look like a demented hyena.


Grooming my skin/fur/fuzz.


How do I get back in?


Time to groom your skin fur, missy.

Later, we drove over to Lancaster to visit That Pet Place, a wonderful, independently-owned store that has the best selection of great pets and supplies I've ever seen. We went over to the small animal section and chatted for the better part of an hour or two with the workers there about everything rattie. Us and the staff there then helped inform a terrified mother and her very enthusiastic daughter about rats as pets, each of us cuddling a big squish of a male, including a russian blue dumbo english irish boy who started to groom the girl as she was holding him. After about a half-hour the mother finally reached out to the blue boy and petted him for a while, deciding that there would probably be rats in her home in the near future and that she should start getting used to them now.

Unfortunately, most of the people that came through the doors were much more excited about the baby guineau pigs (which, because I have friends who've traveled to South America, I view more as something you pick up at market than keep as a pet) who chirped incessantly the whole time we visited. When an inquisitive child went up to the rat cages, their alarmed parents would pull them back and insist that those things were certainly not the pet their child wanted. A nice hamster, instead.

Okay, hamsters are not nice.

I have only ever possessed one nice hamster named Kuzco, who acted more, now that I think about it, like a rat than a hamster, and was probably mixed with something else. There was no way that hamster was what the pet store said he was. I am still the most nervous to pick up a hamster, as, most of the time, they do not want to be picked up. Now, I'm not blaming this entirely on the hamster, as a well-bred and well-handled hamster probably likes people, but, considering that hamsters are thought of almost like a "starter pet," if I was a nice hamster and was suddenly being poked and grabbed at by small children, I would want to knaw off their fingers too.

And guineau pigs, well, they're loud. Loouuud. Chirp chirp chirpity chirp meepmeepmeepmeep. I have met very nice piggies, but I think having one would drive me a little bit crazy.

Anyway, we had a great time snuggling some squishes. What I like about That Pet Place is that, like most of the pet stores I go to, they get their animals from accidental litters and rescue cases. Five of the male rats there had a previous owner who gave them up (why I will never understand), and the other three females in there were all accidentally pregnant. All were in good health and looked like happy squishies/babies. If you would like to adopt a rattie from there, I highly recommend it, as the staff in the small pets section are all small pet (usually rat) owners and have a lot of experience. The woman working there on Tuesday evening owned a neutered male and spayed female rat, along with other small pets and birds, and was great talking to.

And here's a cute picture of the rodent-obsessed pup, Chloe. She tried to befriend the meeces one day by trying to jump up on my dresser, and the meeces tried to bite her face off. Good thing she wasn't (and couldn't) get very close. Here she is sniffing around the backyard.

Can't Get to Sleep Without the Sound of a Wheel

Although it's been only five days since I returned to York, I feel like I've been snoozing on the couch and browsing the forums for weeks. Now that the meeces have returned to hyper activity while I sleep at night in the same room rather than the room next to me, the sound of their wheel turning nonstop throughout the night, I miss my rattie babies even more. I do love the meeces a lot and play with them every day, but they're not just as interested in me as Peaches is when she cuddles next to me, or the twins who desperately want to lick my fingers for any remaining foodscraps.

Ricky reports how the girls are doing every day, and I get to talk to Peaches while she licks the phone. Hopefully, I will soon be able to see Noodle and Peach next week when Ricky visits next week.

Noodle is shedding off her fur again. I'm told that she looks like a baby bird with its feathers growing in. Cute.

Which brings me to why I should never get wrapped up in the rat forums, as they always somehow end up getting me upset. Forums, in general, tend to upset me, but when I found out about one for rats I thought that it mostly consisted of people giving sound advice and commenting on cute rat pictures.

While I read the forums every day, I rarely comment, mostly because everything that can be said has already been said on the topic, and that keeping up on a thread becomes nearly impossible when you go off to run an errand and return an hour later. By this point, the thread becomes people reiterating their opinion as strongly as possible, in the hope, I think, that their sheer persistence will convince the other person that they are, of course, right. While I have no problems with debate and good conversation (as usually that's what most of it is), when I saw a thread about the Spring Rodent Fest and a separate one about what makes a good breeder I become interested.

The first thread started off with a lot of excitement about the fest, but then the post-fest conversation turned into an accusatory hodge-podge of comments calling most of the breeders there "sketchy." When one of the ratteries I had met at the Fall fest came up, I raised an eyebrow and wondered if that person had even bothered to go up and have a conversation with the owners, as they are very nice people and very willing to talk with you about what they do and what they planned to do with the rattery. I had played with their rats previously, and all were very sweet and looked healthy. The people could afford to keep the amount of rats they owned and were very passionate about rescuing as well.

In fact, the majority, minus maybe one or two stands, were all breeders and rescues I had previously come across and talked to extensively. The woman who owns the apparently "sketchy" rattery/rescue recognized me from the Fall and we had a nice conversation. The other rattery and mousery people also recognized me and we talked for a while and handled the rats and mice.

The fact that some people feel that a decent rattery never sells their rats at a show I found interesting. If anyone had even talked to most of the people there, especially the people with more rats, they would have discovered that most of the rats there were already reserved and those people adopting had already filled out an adoption contract. Anyone observing the adoptions of the animals at the fest would probably have assumed the breeders were practically giving away their rats without any prior knowledge of the adopter, but, in reality, many people who were picking up rats (and mice for that matter) had previously filled out adoption questionnares. They then paid the adoption fee and filled out a contract there. The rats that did not already have homes were up for adoption by the attendees, but those people were also informed about rat care and asked the same questions they would have been if they had made a previous reservation. I think that meeting an adopter face-to-face and asking them questions there, allowing them to see and handle the rats, and informing them there would be the better idea.

I myself encountered many a suspicious mousery owner who questioned me about my mice and asked if I had owned mice previously etc. etc. It was a not a free give-away fest. And by claiming that none of those rattery (and, I assume, included mousery) owners are not legitimate, to me, just seems accustary, rather than informational to the those interested in adopting rodents.

Up next: Ratteries vs. Rescues
and the hybrid rattery/rescue

Introducing Noodle E. Monkey

Now that finals are over and I am back in York with only the meeces, I finally have the time to post some pictures of our newest rattie aka the rat that Ricky said we were never going to get at Rodent Fest.

Ricky, myself, and a friend from college got up early Saturday morning to take the 2 1/2 hour drive up to Reading, PA for the Spring 2009 Rodent Fest. We got lost, our directions instructing us to drive through the beautiful town of Reading instead of heading north to the Leesport Farmer's Market. We stopped off at a Valero where the woman working there informed us that we, in fact, did not need to go through the entire town and up a mountain, and then commented that we were not the first group of people that morning inquiring about directions. We decided not to tell her what we were doing there to avoid the strange looks.

We arrived at Rodent Fest to the sound of an annoying rock caught up underneath the car and us frustratingly blaring the Mars Volta in order to drown out the sound. As soon as we entered, we were crushed by an overwhelming crowd of people and a space twice as big as the Fall festival. Children were running around everywhere with their new pet mice and rats in Critter Keepers, and breeders and rescues overwhelmed with crowds of people surrounding their rodents. Our friend bolted off to say hello to her friends from the New York Rat Meetup, while I tried to talk to Mike of Mikiodo Mice, who was surrounded by at least 20 people trying to buy his already reserved mice.

So, instead, Ricky and I headed over to Shylah, owner of SNR House of Rats, to see the two ratties our friend had reserved, Angel of Mercy and Nemesis, the former being a very large and silky-furred gray hooded female and the latter a rex chocolate berk. As Ricky entertained himself with some of the big male rats that Shylah's husband let him hold, I set out to find available female mice to add to the Project Runway crew.

In the entire showroom, all but three were reserved.

Kicking myself for not making a reservation before the show, and also surprised, since there were many mice available at the Fall show, I acquired the cards of the mouseries there and decided to wait until the fall to get a few more girls. I then headed over to a rattery from Michigan and fell in love with a four-week old dumbo russian blue patchwork hairless kitten (yes, baby rats are called kittens), and begrudgingly walked away when Ricky beckoned me over to the SNR table. He had suddenly decided that getting a two-pound miniature groundhog of a male rat was the new thing, and while I tried to hold the lazy boy, called up his parents. His mother, who had the watch the girls while he was traveling around Europe for three weeks, balked at the idea of watching boys too, and the idea of getting boys was put on hold for another season.

However, I think we are still very interested in the possibility of having two big lazy fluffballs to watch TV with, so the possibility of males in the future, especially neutered males, is still around.

I then wandered over to Haskell's, where Ricky and I both saw our little Noodle, a dumbo russian blue agouti (same coloration as Peaches) fuzzy hairless, a hyper four-week old kitten that jumped right onto my hand and demanded my warmth. We snatched her up in less than twenty minutes of deliberation. By the end of the show, we had accumulated a new baby for us, two girls from SNR for our friend who couldn't come, and our friend got two babies, a beige and a chocolate rex, to keep her girl Trill company.

Laden with five ratties, we tumbled back into the car and began to drive away, when the annoying rattling from the car turned into a full-out scraping sound. Annoyed, I climbed out of the car and laid on the parking lot and looked underneath the car.

Now, I have had experience with roadkill and dead things, especially on Pennsylvania roads, getting up into cars, but I have never had the experience of seeing something that had obviously crawled up into the car and died fall back out, with certain car parts attached to it. I half-screamed and Ricky dashed out of the car, thinking that the worst has happened ie engine was about to fall out. I picked up a random board laying near the market building and beat the dead skin and fur thing from a loose non-essential covering, but failed to pry the dragging cover off from the car. Withat least a part of the dead animal off, we continued to drive away the screeching car part that finally fell off somewhere in southern PA.

Ricky refuses to take the car to an auto shop. I think part of the dead thing is still in there.

Besides that, we had a wonderful time at Rodent Fest. I caught up with some of the people from the Fall show, pet the skunk, and talked Project Runway for a while. And now, here is Noodle E. Monkey:

Rodent Fest Tomorrow!

Tomorrow begins the journey up to Leesport, PA for a day filled of rats, mice, ferrets, and hopefully a snuggler of a skunk we met during the Fall Rodent Fest.

I just wish I could find out more information about the vendors and breeders who will be there (like the info they had for the fall fest).

Due to the busy end-of-semester workload, I found the link for Mike's adoptees after all of the females had been reserved, which is good and bad, as getting new meeces sounds more and more tempting every day. This means I'll be on the prowl all day making up my mind on more babies. I'm thinking about either a siamese or some kind of rex if I do end up adopting some.

In order to deter the adopting of more rats, I asked a couple friends if they wanted to tag along. We'll be picking up two girls from SNR for my friend Bekah who can't make it, and our friend Olua is coming along to get a friend for Trillian, as Marvin and his poor back legs can't keep up with her anymore during playtime.

Because of time and everything else, I don't have many new pictures, so here's a pick of Mimi on the keyboard for piano lessons:


And the Peach:


And, of course, an old pic of Ron Howard:




Rodent Fest pics to come!