# Rescued 3 week old litter.



## Poisoned (Nov 17, 2012)

From a hoarding situation, it's pitiful.  My friend is doing everything she can to save more. 

There are between 9-11 I think, they're pretty feral. Selfs, berks, and a little hoodie. And one little dumbo cutie.


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## cagedbirdsinging (May 28, 2012)

Those look a lot more like 5 or even 6 weeks to me, but they still aren't likely past the point of being able to tame properly.


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## evander (Jun 30, 2013)

They are all really cute!!

I agree they look older than 3 weeks! You can win them over with treats and kindness!!


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## Poisoned (Nov 17, 2012)

They're the size of 3wk olds - easily half the size of my 5wk old babies. However, they were not fed much at all from my understanding. So that could explain it. A couple are larger (the blue male for one) and I think are from separate litters. 

I really want to work on their social skills but I don't want to stress them out just yet. Poor kids.


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## Rumy91989 (Dec 31, 2012)

Awww, poor babies! I'm sure they will come around quickly under your patient care. They are at the perfect age for you to just dive right into socialization, though, if you wanted.
Are any of the dumbos black berkshires? And female? Because I'm not going to lie, between the return of Hope and this litter I'm seriously considering a trip out your way...


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## LightningWolf (Jun 8, 2012)

Aw. Why must you be so far away?

The Black Dumbo looks like a self, can we please make his nickname Bentley Jr? Also that last picture of him is adorable. 

Ok just because I really want to ask even though I can't go up there anytime soon, are there any black self males?


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## Poisoned (Nov 17, 2012)

Definitely black selfies! I think the big blue is a self too. I'll get some better pictures today while I clean their cage. They are stinking adorable. They sure hate me though.


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## Poisoned (Nov 17, 2012)

Okay, I thought there were females - apparently not! upon closer inspection today it looks like everyone is male.

There are:
6 black selfs, 3 have little bitty white marks on their chests. 
The dumbo is self, tiny white chest mark that looks like it wanted to be Irish, but it isn't. I guess he may not be self, but he's pure black all over save for that. 
And (my best guess) there are two russian blues, a hooded and a berkshire. And then there's the plain old blue berkshire.


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## Poisoned (Nov 17, 2012)

I'm working hard to socialize them. One of the selfs is quick to come lick my hands but none are okay with being held or touched yet.



This big fatty is so pretty! American Blue, right? I think he must be from a different litter, because he is bigger than anyone else.


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## Rumy91989 (Dec 31, 2012)

Oh my goodness they are so incredibly adorable! The blue guy is amazing.


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## Poisoned (Nov 17, 2012)

He hates me like they all do! lol

Oh and yes LW - he can be Bentley!


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## LightningWolf (Jun 8, 2012)

I say Russian Blue on the blue boy

Yeah, hopefully that means he'll grow up to be like Bentley, who basically does nothing but lays on your lap or chills on your shoulder, He's been my only boy so far to be your "typical" male rat.


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## Poisoned (Nov 17, 2012)

I thought the hooded was russian blue - he looks almost black at times but is definitely blue. 

They are so tiny and light compared to my baby girls - I have to be careful feeding them because they will keeping eating until everything is gone.


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## Poisoned (Nov 17, 2012)

They are are doing their best to be difficult. I have to force-medicate, which I doubt is helping our relationship but it has to be done. I want to get them healthy ASAP so I can put them with my social sweet rats to help make them comfortable with people. They have a total fit because I have to hold them and empty the syringe in their mouths, and they're so tiny I can only do about half a drop at a time. Little buttheads. That's 22 individual force-medications a day.


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## LightningWolf (Jun 8, 2012)

Hint for meds that made Niko and all my boys fall in love with the medical syringe. Mix it with some red gatorade. (I checked, gatorade is safe to mix with Amoxicillin, Baytril, and from what I can find Doxycycline as well). Just becareful cause if they end up liking that you have to give them the medicine separately because you might end up getting a medical syringe stolen and hidden  (Soda wasn't too happy he wasn't getting any gatorade when Niko was sick with his URI).


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## Rumy91989 (Dec 31, 2012)

Oh wow, that sounds very annoying... I would def try the gatorade trick, though. We mixed ours for Yuki in with a bit of baby food at the tip to get her to start licking it on her own which worked quite well.


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## Poisoned (Nov 17, 2012)

I will try gatorade - I've been mixing it with something sweet right before I give it to them, they just hate being touched (or looked at, or talked to lol).
Thanks! We'll get through this.


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## Poisoned (Nov 17, 2012)

Success! I got about half of them to just take their meds like good little rats tonight. And I tricked them into crawling all over my hands using syrup. They went nuts - hopefully I can work them off of that and they'll still come to me. Hopefully! It's a step.


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## Rumy91989 (Dec 31, 2012)

It's really sad to me to think how neglected they must be to be that averse to handling. I got little Ashe (and Nora) when they were 3-4 weeks old, both rescued feeders (one a rejected feeder) that had probably never been handled before ever and they were both very receptive to handling and bonding. I always assumed it was just because they were so young...


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## Poisoned (Nov 17, 2012)

Well, now this is what I've gathered, I do not know FOR SURE because it's just what I heard, but they lived in a house with so many other rats that it was, apparently, too much trouble to pick dying babies off of the floor. A lot of cats too. There is not way they were handled, and might have only ever seen one person going through the house. 
More or less, they've grown up wild, just in a cage. 

I've gotten feeders before who'd only ever known mean, rough handling and having babies snatched from them, but just getting any interaction made them much easier to tame down. 

I wish I had more room, I'd take some more out of that situation. A friend is getting a momma and some pinkies from there this weekend.


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