# I'm happy to be in rat-land!!!



## js6stone (Aug 7, 2009)

Rats make the best pets and I try to convince everyone of that! My name is Jen... new here. I'm hoping to meet other rat lovers and get some advice. We had two females that we loved dearly from '06-'08. We got two new babies this week that I've already fallen in love with! Here are some pics...

This is Punkin. You can see that she had a big tumor. We had surgery done on her but the lump returned. She died during the second surgery.









This is Romey. She also got a tumor and we decided not to put her through the surgery and just had her put to sleep.









Here are our two new babies! The little one is Mylee, and Bella has, what looks like, a lightening bolt on her head!


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## nikki_malicious (Jun 24, 2009)

awww im sorry to hear about you misfortunes. thats very sad. i had a rat with similar color/markings to romy. his name was syd and he passed away last march.


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## Corpseflower (Jun 12, 2009)

Your new ladies have such beautiful markings!


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## js6stone (Aug 7, 2009)

Thank you! We picked them for their great temperment but being pretty never hurts! ;D 

Sorry to hear about Syd. We only have them for a short time but they bring so much love, who could resist?


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## trentrules (Aug 2, 2009)

I'm so sorry about your two girls. My mother recently lost two of her's to tumor removal surgeries. I'm working at getting all of my girls, (with one exception), spayed, so they don't have to go through all the tumors. 

The pic is a little blurry, but OMG Bella and Mylee are ADORABLE. They're almost too adorable to be true. Also, some of my sweetest girls have also come from petSmart. They may not get them from the best of places, but at least in the one near me, the animals are well taken care of and socialised.


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## nikki_malicious (Jun 24, 2009)

petsmart is my favorite place for well mannered ratters. every rat i have from there is absolutely sweet.


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## js6stone (Aug 7, 2009)

The pic IS blurry. I'll try to get some better ones. They've only been with us for 2 days.
I've bought all of my rats from a small, family-run pet store. They truly love the animals and love it when rats are sold as pets. They say it pains them to sell them as snake food and always try to sell them hamsters to feed their snakes instead. We have a small snake, won't get very big, but we feed frozen mice. I could never watch a little critter struggle and could never feed it a rat.


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## Stace87 (Jun 24, 2008)

js6stone said:


> They say it pains them to sell them as snake food and always try to sell them hamsters to feed their snakes instead.


That's not a very good attitude for them to have. Selling hamsters for food is exactly the same as selling rats. If it pains them that much, then they should just opt not to sell any live animals for food and sell frozen instead. They aren't part of a large pet store chain, so there would be nothing stopping them from doing that :-\



js6stone said:


> This is Romey. She also got a tumor and we decided not to put her through the surgery and just had her put to sleep.


What age did Punkin and Romey live to? Rats tend to do well with tumour removals if you have an experienced rat vet and the rats are in otherwise good health. I personally wouldn't refrain from lump removals in future, but obviously everyone has their own opinions. My Spike had a 60g tumour removed at 26 months old and it reached that size in 3 weeks. Spike's tumour: http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk306/Stace_1987/DSCF9029.jpg. There is no way he would be here now if I had left the tumour and he's still doing great now at approx 29 months old. He was also neutered at 2 years old as he had a testicular tumour. He surprises the vets every time with the multitude of problems he seems to have and how well he bounces back.


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## abazoo (Mar 21, 2009)

Welcome to ratforum! 
Aww, my first girl was a black hooded in '06 like your first.. and now I have a little girl named Miley and she has a blaze too.. Thought the similar. were funny


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## nikki_malicious (Jun 24, 2009)

are the new girls dumbos??


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## maddy (Jul 27, 2009)

they sound adorable


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## teresaisaacs (Jul 31, 2009)

the rats are sooooo cute... if i had my way id have every one i see when i go to the store!!


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## nikki_malicious (Jun 24, 2009)

teresaisaacs said:


> the rats are sooooo cute... if i had my way id have every one i see when i go to the store!!


o i def have that problem lol. i want them all!!!


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## js6stone (Aug 7, 2009)

nikki_malicious said:


> are the new girls dumbos??


Yes they are! And doing well! Although they had quite a party last night. They woke me up all night long and this morning everything in their cage is out of place.


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## nikki_malicious (Jun 24, 2009)

hahahah dont you love when they do that?? mine live in me and my bf's bedroom, and we always hear em movin about and movin stuff


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## js6stone (Aug 7, 2009)

This evening I ran a little water in the tub and put 'em in. They loved it!!! They had never seen water out of a bottle before. ;D Lots of fun. We'll do this again soon. They smell better too!


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## nikki_malicious (Jun 24, 2009)

thats good!! my boys are not so fond of bath time. i only do it very rarely, but its not their favorite thing in the world, i can tell you that much.


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## Stace87 (Jun 24, 2008)

nikki_malicious said:


> thats good!! my boys are not so fond of bath time. i only do it very rarely, but its not their favorite thing in the world, i can tell you that much.


Yeah, the majority of rats won't like baths. Max only had one bath his entire life (2 years) and I only needed to wash his belly when he lost the use of his hind legs very close to when he died, to prevent urine burns. Gizmo hates baths and squeaks, has a lot of porphyrin from his eyes/nose (indicating stress) and runs away/squeaks when I pick him up for hours afterwards. Max also got porphyrin. I wouldn't suggest bathing rats unless really really neccessary. It also strips them of their natural healthy oils. 

There's a sticky on bathing rats and explains that they *don't need baths*, amongst other information: http://www.ratforum.com/index.php/topic,11728.0.html


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## js6stone (Aug 7, 2009)

They aren't getting baths. Just playing in the bath water giving themselves baths! Here are a couple pics...










In this pic my daughter gave them a plastic turtle. They had fun with that!


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## Stace87 (Jun 24, 2008)

Lol, the turtle got killed!


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## nikki_malicious (Jun 24, 2009)

omg theyre so cute!! i love the turtle


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## js6stone (Aug 7, 2009)

They decided to copy each other tonight! 
Also I noticed that Mylee's dumbo ears are much bigger and shaped different than Bella's. Is this normal?

Bella...









Mylee...









Bella...









Mylee...


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## abazoo (Mar 21, 2009)

Oh gawd they are so cute!! :-*


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