# so my fellow Forumers with litters at the 3-4 week age



## mimsy (Jun 8, 2014)

Is everyone's babies just getting nuts? I'll be honest here-I not only love listening to your guys stories, I also like to compare your babies to half wilds.  

Good news-babies no longer nibble fingers. I didn't do anything, from the advice given I figured I'd just wait it out. They just stopped on their own, so overal it didn't last long. New fascination is human hair. It's fun to climb, wrap up in and when the human isn't paying attention you can snip some off and take it places. hmmmmm Human faces are really cool. lots of sniffing and licking.

How the heck to close a dcn door when their is so many faces, paws, tails trying to keep you from closing it? It's always a slow process, cus I don't want to smash any faces, paws or tails.

Everyone is eating lots of food on their own, but we still have nursing going on. The two tiny one's are still really clingy with Mom and nurse a lot more than the rest.

Personalities-I have 7 which are completely brave and the hardest to keep control on-door opens and those are the ones that are instantly up my arms, in my hair, hanging off my glasses, making sure I'm not holding out goodies in my hands. The 2 largest of that group-Camello and Fizzlybear both will always want to hang out with the humans given a chance. We have 2 which are very timid and jump at loud noises and if not clinging to their Mum, hide often behind the litter pans. The other 4 fall somewhere in between. They will get interested in what we are doing, can get them to chase a feather toy, but sudden movements and loud noises frighten them. The two most timid, are the smallest in the group and are the ones that keep getting peed on by the others. They are nursing a lot still as well. I hold them a bit, but I'm keeping it as mellow as possible, I'm hoping as they wean they might start feeling a bit more confident. Oddly the largest and boldest of the group is a girl and boy. The smallest most timid is a girl and a boy as well.

Here are the two pics I took yesterday, I put them in one of my old threads-but for t hose that missed em..I must show off the babies again. 

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View attachment 182778


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## DustyRat (Jul 9, 2012)

Awesome pics. Are they wild ratties?


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## mimsy (Jun 8, 2014)

1/2 wilds. Goose escaped for a week and half into the walls, where she was crying all the time. It was pretty awful. When we got her back, we were busy tearing apart everything and making sure filled the holes and put in new baseboard, because we never want that to happen again. It was terrible, my husband, daughter and I hardly slept cause we kept trying to come up with ways to find/get her. We could hear her..so we knew she was close. She got back in the house proper and was trying to climb up on my bed and it startled me, which startled her and she ran under the entertainment stand. So after much coaxing we got her back. Anyways, a little time went by after we finally got her back and we found she was preggo. We now have 12 wee halfsies.


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## moonkissed (Dec 26, 2011)

mine always run to the door and peek out when I open it. If im not careful they will climb right out lol. Mine are still nipping my fingers alittle bit. Not all of them but a few. Its not hard, it tickles really but hopefully they stop testing me lol. 

They still nurse but eat a ton of food & drink out of the water bottle. I have to buy a second bottle just because they go through water so fast. Its alot different have 9 babies vs just one rat lol. They love cheerios and run off with them. Momma is a piggy and isn't happy sharing her food lol. She tries to hide it in the corner and they all rush over and steal it. Poor mom. I find she is nursing alot less already. 

I have about 4 that are pure shoulder rats. Every chance they get they rush to my shoulders and just chill out. They love my hair. I have to keep my hair up or they will bury themselves in it and what a pain to get out. Their newest thing is sitting on the very top of my head cuz that is fun I guess lol. They go absolute insane to scale me though. 

I have a few that are more timid. I am trying to give them extra handling to try and get them more relaxed. They are all about the same size though. I don't have any smaller ones. 

I have a dog playpen I sit in the middle of and let them run around and climb on me. 

They have been keeping me up at night wrestling and running on the wheel nonstop lol And when they nurse they sound like a group of squealing pigs lol


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## mimsy (Jun 8, 2014)

Oh ya, the squealing when nursing! I'm going through food like crazy. I use bowls for water and it's kinda fun to see so many hanging over the edge now.

They also destroy toys! Glad I make my own. The little lava ledges are getting chewed to bits even.


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## Nic (Sep 19, 2014)

moonkissed said:


> They have been keeping me up at night wrestling and running on the wheel nonstop lol And when they nurse they sound like a group of squealing pigs lol


^^ 100% 

The wrestling is just constant.. I have the cage in my room as the cats are too interested in the small ones. (if they're large rats, the cats are frightened of them, they just want the small.. Wimps), sleeping isn't something ive had much of and squealing pigs is exactly the words for it! - lol! -


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## mimsy (Jun 8, 2014)

We have the bubbs in our bedroom as well. I almost always leave the tv on, have always had the rats in my room, when our ferrets were alive we had them in here, and our skunks free ranged in here when they were alive (skunks had the house really, but I had a big plastic cat house in here with their blankets in that they liked to sleep in, and then when it was just Eliot he slept in bed with us) And then lastly my two old dogs sleep in a small mud room which is attached to my bedroom. They used to sleep in my room, but my boarder collie is 17 and doesn't always make it to morning for potty anymore and he doesn't say anything prior. Needless to say I'm pretty use to noise in my room.

However, the squealing sound I think awakens some maternal instinct or something and gives me crazy paranoid dreams of starving rats, I even dreamed that my human girls who are now 17, 25, and 26 years were babies again and starving (they were in a crib and I was forgetting to feed them in the dream..uhm ok). then I wake up with a start and have to do head count-cus now i'm awake but discombobulated and worried that someone is crying in the walls. Which I know the crying in the walls is the bad Memory of their Mom when loose.

I don't have cats, but I am always surprised at how many pics I've seen of people with rats and cats out together. I pondered about how good the cats would be if they rats were pups.


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## gina84963 (Nov 1, 2014)

Your 1/2 wilds acted like that? I wonder if it was because you had more time with Mom before hand. Carmen, my Mom, was only with me a day before she had her little ones. The boys now sleep in their hammock and the girls still hide under the blankets. Occasionally they will be scurrying around the cage making me freak about them getting out accidentally. (I still worry they can get through the bars) I sure don't have a problem with them trying to climb all over me


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## mimsy (Jun 8, 2014)

I can tell you it's been a ton of time spent with them. I feed them a lot of food by hand as well to get them used to the idea that the hand brings awesome goodies. New spaces scare them. when I first started bringing them to the bathroom, I would cover my legs with a small blanket so they could hide under it. It was either that or all of them would be in my shirt, and that is scratchy. On the good side of bringing them to new scary places, you are the familiar thing so they tend to bond to you as their safe place. It's a lot of hands on time, and to be honest I've done a ton of reading on peoples experiences with 1/2 wilds. I change their cage up all the time to familiarize them with change as well. 

Give them some time and hopefully you can get them to be more trusting.


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