Pirate and Zorro have contests to see who can get most in their mouths when I feed them. Zorro has devised the interesting technique of stuffing as much in as possible, then using one paw to stack two or three more pieces up against his open mouth and walking carefully away on just three legs.
Ratties seem to be as fascinated as cats are by bags. The six boys in the lower cage love to leap into the bag that I bring their litter through in and have a rummage around. I wish they'd wait till I put the litter in the cage before they used it as a toilet, though.
It wasn't until I got to work today that I realised that I had a nibble hole in my blouse, around an inch long. Someone little rat(bag) has obviously been sitting quietly inside my jumper making their own bedding. Sigh!
All three hamsters now seem to be living downstairs. When the children asked for them, it was on the understanding that they would live upstairs in their rooms.
ME: "You won't mind the noise then? They are nocturnal, you know"
KIDS: "It's already noisy and we still sleep OK. ........ snores all night anyway."
ME: "They do get quite noisy. They'll be squeaking on their wheels all night."
KIDS: "Not if we oil the wheels."
Didn't work.
"Miss ........ says I've got to move my hamster out of my room because I was falling asleep in class."
Arghhhhhhh
Jazzy's bald patch has practically disappeared. He was just waiting till I got worried, spent lots of money at the vet's and failed to wrap him up so he couldn't scratch the scab, then he healed up with no fuss.
The ratties have all been out to play together today. Pirate got a little worked up as he's quite nervous of the other boys, despite being much larger than any of them. Unfortunately this tends to show as aggression, but we got by without any major incidents. While they were out I started to clean out the top cage, but they were ready to go home before I was finished, so they came back in while I was wiping down. Well he obviously still felt threatened, because he gave me my first real rat bite. I now have a matching pair of puncture holes in my right ring finger, and a lovely bruise coming up. Ratbag!
I've been dithering for months now about whether to have him castrated like his brother. Most of the time he's fine, but he's unpredictable. I'm sure it's when he feels threatened, like today when I was in his cage with a strange smelling cloth, or the times when one of the other rats upsets him so he beats up his brother. There's this niggling thought that the op might make him calmer, but if anything went wrong it would be my fault.
Annette
Last modified: Friday, 04-Mar-2005 23:56:43 GMT
