CiCi, our little Rattie

CiCi

CiCi was in a pet store that we have loved for many years and where we have gotten all by three of our little rodent friends. However, the day we got this little girl, we had no intentions of getting any other rats. My youngest daughter, 12, and I were shopping around for ideas on cages to help us plan one we want to build.

They had made two sets of sexing errors for rats - one for us and one for our friends. All three rats that were mis-sexed were very obviously girls. But we were forgiving in that not everyone can sex rodents.

But when we visited that day, there were definitely 3 girls in with many boys in one cage. And to top it off, at least two of the girls are pregnant. I spoke to three different workers there. One of them told me that when there is not enough room to keep the boys and girls separated, they put them together. I got upset and told them that was irresponsible. She just shrugged her shoulders. So I responded with, "I can no longer, in good conscience, be able to recommend your pet store to any of my friends or future business acquaintances." This also did not seem to affect her and no move was made to remove the girls.

Thus our quandary began. What do we do about the three little girls? We already have 7 rats. So I called my husband to make sure it would be ok with him if we decided to bring them home. He left it up to me, sweet wonderful and patient man he is. My daughter and I spent another 10 minutes talking it over and finally made the decision to get them.

We bought them and some extra supplies and brought them home. We already had three cages available we could place them. We have placed Cora in her own so she would be able to get it ready and be used to the cage in time for the birthing since she is the furthest along. CiCi and Clara are in another one together. We wanted them to get used to us and they seemed to be a little more skitterish apart from each other.

They have since not turned out to be pregnant. That would have been bad if they were. We were not prepared for one rattie to have babies, let alone three.

I am so sad about this pet store. It was so clean and they treated their animals with care. But we have noticed in the last few months that the animals cages weren't as clean and the pets were without food and water a lot. Our little girls were eating the feces in the cage because there was no food or water for them.

CiCi looks a lot like my daughters two girls. And when I held her, she just warmed up to me right away. So we decided that my daughter would get Cora and Clara and I would get CiCi after all the birthing is over and the babies are placed. However, my daughter would still like to get two boys. But since then, Cailean and Cora did not get along so now I have Cora and my daughter has CiCi and Clara. Christopher - See what you have started!

We brought her home on 01/11/2003 and guestimated she is 8 weeks old. So we chose this date for her and her sister's birthday.

The newest family member that doesn't have a look-a-like sister.

A handful of love.