# Ratty update at Isamu rats (plus baby pics!)



## Isamurat (Jul 27, 2012)

It's been a while since I've properly got on here, life has somewhat taken off and theres been lots of changes in both rat life and real life. 

I'm now settled in my new house and have a lovely rat room. Its a double garage which is split into a proper room with lights and water and another half for junk. The rats share the room half with the utility room.


This is the rat end of the rat room, complete with there free range set up, the room is fully rat safe so they can run round it all. My perminant group has the 2 bottom sections for the SRS which is opened into one big cage. The top section (aka the pent house suite) is for any visitors or when i have a litter (currently occupied by 7 x 6 week old baby girls!). The cupboard to the left is where i keep a lot of the rat junk and i can set up temporary cages such as a birthing cage or in the litter a furret for older babies and extra guests (thats got 4 x baby boys at the moment lol).


So onto my current rats, theres been big changes here, last time i was on I kept boys i think. Well now i have no boys at all, my last lad passed away about 2 weeks ago having spent his retirement living with his daughters (after being netured lol). I have 3 adult girls. 

The oldest is Skally, she came to me as an adult, retired from breeding from a more traditional breeder to get the extra attention of a pet focused home. She's around the 18 month mark, and is very sweet and engaging but seems to have been hit a bit hard by the loss of my old man Toad (they settled into a bit of a husband and wife relationship) as she's started showing her age a little. 


Next is Shine (or fancy show name Lovecraft Earthshine), she's one of the two daughters of my last home bred buck and is wonderful and very shiny lol. Shes a bit special having a really wonderful friendly temprement and doing rather amazingly well at shows too. I'm planning on having a litter from her soon, so that is really exciting.


Here's what shine loves to do most... lick lick lick


My final adult is Moo (fancy name Lovecraft Shoot for the Moon), shes an amazing personality and is firmly convinced the world revolves around her. Shes the mum of my current babies and very special to me. She's not quite the all round rat that shine is but she makes up for it by her ability to be the center of attention (woe betide anyone who tries to ignore Moo!).


And Moo proving what an amazing mum she is, nursing her babies on her back whilst is gave her scritches.


Finally we have my current troup of babies (all happily got homes lined up about 3 times over lol). There are 11 very busy little ones that are currently 6 weeks old and impossible to photograph without major blurrs. I have 7 girls that are a mix of 5 agouti dumbos and 2 black dumbos, and 4 boys which are 1 agouti dumbo, 2 agouti irish dumbos and a black dumbo with a white drip on his belly (i cant bring myself to call him a berkshire as its literally a few hairs lol) Here's some highlights of the time i could actually photo them though

Newborn babies at day 1


A handful of babies a few days old


How cute are dumbo ears at this age!


The black babies at 10 days old - when there coats were properly coming through for the first time


The agouti girl babies at this age - note you can see 2 are lighter, these carry the red eyed dilute gene

The boy agouti babies at this age


Me and the babies watching tv before there eyes opened (about 2 weeks)


The 4 baby boys just as there eyes started to open (about 14 days old)


And the girl babies


Moo nursing all 11 at 3 weeks old - note the naughty baby attempting to eat her foot


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## LauraJay (Oct 8, 2015)

Oh I am so in love with that setup!! And the ratties...!!

Lovely post! I love it!


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

What a lovely setup and beautiful babies... Good to have you back.


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## Fireflies (Aug 30, 2015)

I'm impressed with your room. I just had an oops litter about 7 weeks ago too of dumbos. Your mama had some beautiful babies.


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## Kelsbels (Aug 12, 2015)

Ooh I really want a SRS! Wonderful set up and your rats are beautiful!


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## Love My Rats (Sep 3, 2015)

nice pics , love all the babies


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## PaigeRose (Apr 12, 2013)

What a beautiful group of ratties!!! And awesome setup!


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## Fu-Inle (Jan 22, 2015)

Love the last pic


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## mis.kay (May 29, 2015)

Absolutely amazing setup. Whenever I get a house of my own I will definitely be trying to look for those with a spare room for the ratties. If my sister hadn't moved back in with us they would already have one! The babies are adorable and look healthy. I'm glad everything is going so well. Quick question, what kind of floor coverage are Moo and Shine standing on in the first pictures?


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## Isamurat (Jul 27, 2012)

That's a scarf I had to make the photo look pretty lol. Normally they are stuck with card or hemp alas


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## Thor (Oct 1, 2015)

Wow!!! So jealous!! I would love to have a rat room full of toys! Looks like so much fun!

I would specially love to have a dumbo but I don't know where to get one. The only place that I think I could get one is a Pet Shop which I wouldn't want to give them any business. 
The only adoption centre I have found is on mainland Spain and they wont send to Canaries. :anguished:


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## Isamurat (Jul 27, 2012)

I've literally just got back from lanzerote! I'd have thought being in Europe it would be doable as it gets done a fair bit. The trouble is finding an airline that will take them and a breeder prepared to go through the trouble of the checking in process (a friend exported to Sweden once via air and it was painful). Failing that you could arrange trip to sunny England (or somewhere else in mainland Europe) it's also easier by train or ferry


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## Thor (Oct 1, 2015)

Awww if only posted sooner maybe we could have met somewhere! 

How would I arrange to bring them over? I can ' t imagine Airlines being to keen on having rats on board! Is it expensive?


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

I've shipped tropical fish by air freight. It isn't too expensive but you have to drop off the animals at the air cargo terminal and pick them up at the other airport. If you are going between countries, you also have to deal with customs. You may need to get a permit to import animals. In the US it costs a couple hundred dollars as I recall. With fish there's no quarantine. If you are only shipping a few rats, it might be best to have someone with a permit do the import for you though, they have experience with customs and the airport people. The first time dealing with the airport people can be daunting, but once they know you things actually go pretty smoothly.


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