Iris, we'll miss your bloom

Iris passed away a few days ago, we don't know why. She had diarrhea but never stopped eating and drinking and didn't stop being active. She never appeared to be in pain and wasn't too stressed. She became too weak to beat the illness, so we made the decision to put her to sleep. As she was passing to the Bridge she began to run where she lay on her side. This is how I choose to remember her, always full of life, and always loving.

We'll miss you beautiful. Tell the others hi for us and keep everyone happy until we see them.

Insanity Abounds

I haven't posted in nearly two weeks, I apologize. We haven't been able to connect to the internet where I live because for some reason a modem that worked perfectly fine before is now having issues and won't work for my laptop... but will still work for the PS3, explain that. Anyway, Ben and I have had a few calamities the past month, including being out of a car temporarily until we get the tire repaired and my job screwing us over.

Ben and I would have had the same job with CPI Corp. at PictureMe Portrait Studios, except they require that you make them your number one scheduling priority. Ben has school, he's a full time student and if he isn't then he cannot receive his GI Bill. Well, he was going to be starting work last Friday at one of the company locations near to where we live. I told him that the policy for scheduling is that whatever else you do cannot interfere with however they would schedule you. If it does they reserve the right to fire you. No, I'm not kidding. If you have a second job or go to school you have to make sure they know and that you never have to request a schedule change. So, anyway, the district manager calls him on Friday from a different location than the one she told him he needed to be and says, "unless there was a misunderstanding, you're supposed to be in today." He tries to politely explain that he cannot work for the company if he's going to school at the same time, there won't be enough time for one or the other.

Then she tries to fire him as he's quitting.

Our car is unable to be driven because even though we have all four tires we only have two bolts and lugs on one wheel, meaning that it is unsafe to drive. So, I'd been needing to get rides from friends and family and on Saturday I knew I'd be late, so I told my manager the night before. Well, I couldn't get a ride, no one was available. I called and told her this (by this point I don't even want to work there anyway), and she said she'd call me back when something was figured out. She never called me back, so I call back at 6:45, roughly fifteen minutes before close because by then they shouldn't have much business and things should be calm. The manager says things so quickly I cannot understand, but what I do catch is that they cannot reschedule me for two more weeks. I gave them plenty of notice and technically this would qualify as an emergency yet, because of something about my training, I'm being suspended for two weeks. Yeah, I'm looking for another job this is ridiculous.

Anyway, Algernon's babies are very well, they're 17 days old and cute as all heck. The boy I'm keeping has been named Galahad. It's so funny, I couldn't figure out what to name him and I was consulting with Ben for advice and he said Galahad. The little guy starts bruxing and kissing me! I took that as a yes :)

G'mornin, g'night or g'day

Afterthought: "Use words like just, nearly, only or a difference of  to make prices seem smaller than they actually are." That is in one of their training videos.

Ratty Sniff: Camarattery

 Ratty Sniff will be a series I'll be doing on any rattery I happen to come across that catches my attention. Either for the right or wrong reasons. Once I'm done with an overall evaluation, I'll be grading them on an F to A scale based on the Rat Adoption Guidelines that were listed out in a previous blog. It will be a simple positive/plus (+) or negative/minus (-) on each area of the list and depending on how well they score, they'll receive a grade accordingly. In the case of unknown information (unk) I'll count it as a negative/minus score as that information should be available on their site most of the time.




Okay, let's get back into the groove of things, yeah? When I first started to do really in depth research on rats and ratteries around the country this was one that I cam across. My first impression: Arrogant. My second impression: Has reason to be. That and with my personality a first impression isn't always what lasts. I like to look at things two or three times before I make an actual judgement. It's what I feel is fair if I'm skeptical about something. So, while reading through the site over the past few days I've discovered that my initial impression was wrong and right at the same time. Right because yeah, the text does come off as arrogant. Wrong because this rattery has accomplished a lot and just plain text is not effective in conveying tone of voice (this is why we need a sarcasm font).


So, without further ado, let's start sniffing for treats around Camarattery based Southwest Denver, CO. By the way Cama, I see what you did there, haha.


The first thing you'll see on this site is the logo and a cute baby rat in a sleepy hat. The second thing, well organized links! It isn't a necessity for a rattery to have a website in my opinion, at least not a custom domain, but when they do, they should at least try to organize well. That was one thing I loved about Ravencharm's site in the previous Ratty Sniff. She makes it impossible to get lost on the site. Right on the front page at Cama is the story of how she started. She talks about starting a rattery in Colorado in a time when there were very few good breeders out there. Cama is the founder of the Colorado Rat List and the Association of Colorado Rat Enthusiasts which is partnered with AFRMA. Amy, the founder of Cama also judges at rat shows.


The specializations are few, self and downunder hooded with a blaze. For anyone curious, downunder rats are incredibly rare in the US as they originated in Australia (hence "down under") and down under simply means that the rats back markings are mirrored on their underside. Variegated back begets variegated belly and so on and so forth. While the specializations are few she does have many lines, all of which have dwarf incorporated. I would normally go off on a tangent about hairless rats, except in this case because of the fact that Amy has been breeding for over a decade and should have enough experience (hopefully) to know when an animal isn't healthy. There is a quote on the site that, "you get what you breed." It's true and this is why I won't throw a hissy fit like I normally would. I throw a hissy fit about irresponsible breeders that are breeding hairless (and length of breeding career does not determine whether a breeder is responsible or not, it's about practices). Same thing follows for the manx, if she didn't have the ten plus generations of rats and the twenty plus years breeding, I'd be far more uneasy about it.


The reason she doesn't count many of her lines as a specialty is because they aren't something she's worked with long enough to be a good representation of her rats.


She mentions diets and says she uses Harlan Teklad blocks for her rats as well as another dry mix. My huge problem with the mix is that it has raw peanuts in it which can cause massive health issues in rats. 


She breeds dumbo and top eared, rex, velveteen, standard, hairless and silk coats (although the velveteen being listed with the same gene as rex is a pet peeve of mine). She breeds blues and russian blues. She breeds damn near everything including roan, which is pretty impressive to a new breeder like myself. My first impression was that the breeder was arrogant, but when I read through the words on the site I realize that a bit of my first impression was wrong. She does admit that there are things she doesn't know, but when she does know about something she lets people know. She still works with breeders and with AFRMA actively and even states in the nursery pages what she is looking for in the stages of breeding for a line. From health to conformation to temperament, she works on them in stages with health first and foremost in her efforts.


Before we move on let me quickly explain why I get peeved with people listing a velveteen rat (Cu/-) as a rex (Re/-). It's the same reason I have an issue with AFRMA listing Russian blues (rb/rb) as regular blues (d/d) genetically. Rexes are known for a few things, the biggest is the curl in their coat and lack of guard hairs as well as very curly whiskers. If you feel a rex coat it will feel coarse and will be very short, so short than you can see the skin under their coat and in double rexes they will look almost hairless. A velveteen is very different frm a rex in all of these aspects. Velveteen coats are long, thick and fluffy with wavy guard hairs. The whiskers do not have a curl, more of a wave. I own five velveteen rats and have owned one single rex, there is a significant difference. So much so that when I list my rats genetics in order to do litter predictions, those five that the theoretical Cu label instead of the established Re label rexes have. The differences are so vast that in my opinion from experience and research these coat types are not caused by the same gene.


She has at-home pickup hours clearly stated and tells why she won't hold specific babies and why people cannot come to "preview" her litters. The reason she has specific pickup hours is because the rest of her time goes to family, which is something I can respect a great deal.


So, let's see how she compares to our previous sniffs. Look here for reference.


1. +
2. +
3. +
4. +
5. +
6. +
7. +
8. +
9. +
10. +
11. +
12. +
13. +


100% A




Afterthought: Like I said, when I first came across this breeder, I thought she was very arrogant, upon further inspection, I realize that she has a bit of reason to be, but she really isn't. Confusing, yeah? She is very thorough in her lines and will openly admit that she doesn't know everything and that her lines are a work in progress. She's responsible and scrupulous in her practices which is something I can greatly respect.


*Amy contacted me and gave me the missing information. It seems that she does not adopt to anyone who does not agree to give back her rats if they cannot take care of them. She also guarantees a full refund or a replacement at the discretion of the adopter.

A Sad Day

Amid all the joy of starting a new job and having newborn rats, we also had a bit of tragedy. Our boy Dumble suffered a thrombotic stroke. He passed away this morning. We will always miss the biggest rat of them all.

When we got Dumble I first thought that maybe he was a domesticated black rat, being that he had a long tail and large eyes and ears. He was also small for his age. Come to find out through investigation that he was a dwarf rat. Ben and I have been so lucky with all of our rats and the milestones we've come across in pet stores. Dumble was not an exception, neither was his brother, Zeus. We always made silly jokes about Dumble being small then replying with, "I's not little! I'm just as big as any other rat! I take you on!"

He had that personality, always so bright and animated. Even near the end of his life he kept eating and drinking. After all, he was just as big as any other rat, he could take this on.

I'll miss him so much, I know Ben will. I showed him the picture above and he cried the entire time reading it. We've lost a light, but we still have so many more.

We'll miss you big guy. You were bigger than any other rat, never forget that.

More and more and more...

Until I start me new job on thursday as a photographer, I'll be sitting here at home.. doing anything I can to stay occupied. So, I realized that word of mouth doesn't spread that fast if no mouths have words. So, I created a facebook page for the rattery. This will make it easier for people who want to adopt to contact me and for those who have already adopted to keep me up-to-date on their new loves.

The information packet should be finished in time for the first litter to be adopted out. It will have information on food, housing, health and behavior as well as a few other fun things. I'm really excited. As I said in a blog post a while back, I want to be the kind of breeder I'd feel comfortable adopting from and I am damn picky about breeders. I'm planning on finding another breeder in the listing on NFRS or AFRMA for a Ratty Sniff here soon.

I have a new email related to rats if anyone were to have questions or comments:
squeaks_gigglesrats@yahoo.com

G'mornin, g'night or g'day

Afterthought: Sleepy rats are cute ^_^

Breeding, it hath begun

Okay, so Fée's litter is thirteen days old and Ben and I have already picked out the two we'll be keeping. Ear canals have opened and eyes should follow shortly. I'm at Ben's school right now, listening to music and reading online. You may or may not recall a post I had a while back, the first Ratty Sniff in which I gave a local breeder a very low grade. I paid a new visit to her site and I am still just as unimpressed as I was months ago.

I feel I should go a little further into the reasoning as to why I feel hairless rats should not be bred. There is a term in breeding that every breeder dreads. Infanticide, and it means the killing of an infant. Mother rats will sometimes do this to their own or other female's litters. One reason for doing it to their own is a lack of food, a lot of stress and even accidents. Sometimes a part of a litter or a whole litter can be killed if the female is having issues with lactation. She will kill off any bit of the litter she cannot support, it's about the same reason she'll kill babies in a food shortage, less hungry mouths and a healthier mother to feed the rest of the litter. All that being said, hairless females are notorious for lactation issues and there have been cases in which a hairless female has killed part or all of her litter due to this issue.

Rats in the wild have hair. They are supposed to have hair and tails and messing with their genetics like this is dangerous. Now I can see the immediate rebuttal, "isn't breeding messing with genetics, I mean, you're breeding to go for a certain thing in the babies." Big difference here is that when I breed rats it's because the parents have great health and personalities. Another rebuttal, "but people change things in dogs all the time and dogs are just fine." Well, sometimes. In some breeds we've focused too much on what a pretty dog is and less on what a healthy dog is. Also, the genetics of the canidae family of animals has something unique in their genetic make up. Malleability. They have a special area of their genome, called a tandem repeat, that allows for great changes through selective breeding. The canidae family is the only family of animals known to have such genetic versatility. That is why when you breed dogs you can get down right creative with them. They have the genetic ability to change in such huge ways.

Rats simply don't and messing with things that are hardwired into their genes can really screw things up. Tailless rats can have back and leg issues, can be born with partial tails and other deformities. Hairless rats have very sensitive skin and cannot handle temperature changes as well as rats with hair.

On the thought of temperature change, on her site she has a memorial section for those she's lost. Two rats passed away from heat stroke because her air conditioner went out. I'm not usually one to judge someone who's lost a pet like that, let alone two. I've lost rats in quick succession then been left wondering what I did or didn't do only to ultimately come to accept there was nothing I could have done. Persephone was one of the hardest lessons learned there. But heat stroke? That could have been prevented. So easily prevented. Give them a bath, give them some ice (frozen fruit juice is a wonder), give them frozen veggies, given them SOMETHING. Anything! Those animals did not have to die! I've experienced loss with rats, it sucks, it hurts, I cry and cry and for a lot of them I still cry so long after they've gone. But I lost every one of them to an illness of some kind, something I really couldn't control. If my AC went out in the middle of June, I'd be freezing water non-stop, I'd have my ice-brace out for them and I'd give them all a bath if need be. But good God, heat stroke is a horrible way to die. She's a stay at home wife as well, she was there and could have done something, this is inexcusable to me.

*sigh*

Anyway, on to happier things. Algernon had her litter yesterday, 6 healthy pinkies that once I'm home I'll be sexing to see the ratio of girls to boys. She had a pretty easy birth from what I can tell, though I thought she'd have had more. But, it doesn't matter, she's been such a good girl! She's more aggressive than Fée, I can stick my hand right into the nest with her and all she does is glare. Each rat is different and I cannot wait to see the beautiful babies grow up! If all goes well I may breed Athena this November or December. If I don't then I'll not be breeding her, as she'll be too old by then. It won't affect my view of her in any way, she's still my mad minky mischief. :)

Mr. Coffey

Miss Alexa

G'mornin, g'day or g'night

Afterthought: What do you feed your rats? We're switching all of our babies to human food like frozen and fresh veggies/fruits. :)