It's been a hectic couple of weeks. Stuff going on with the family involving a lot of driving around, but that's calming down now. The car failed its MOT so we had to get another one quickly. One of those periods where everything seems to happen at once.
The two visitors have gone home to their mum - I think they enjoyed their stay. They were very buck-greasy when they came, but Ginnie has been grooming them with a toothbrush and olive oil and they look fabulous now.
Tinga and Tucker the two little bears.
Rose and Hardy, the two rehome girls, are now integrated with Chester and the girls. They are little stunners, lovely big eyes, licky, very slightly thinner than I would expect but I probably overfeed my lot. It was really heartbreaking to see them parted from their mum, as she obviously loved them very much.
Rose and Hardy
I've got a rat show coming up on Saturday and I'm nowhere near ready for it. I'm sure we'll get through it though. Hope the new car is up to the trip to Brum and back.
Because we now have the whole of the dining room as 'ours', and because the girls wouldn't stay in the playpen anyway, we are now using the whole room for freerange. It's madness. Misty and Moonie in particular enjoy sitting just outside other people's cages and screeching at them. My rats have been more vocal than I've ever known before now they can sit outside one another's cages. The girls seem to enjoy climbing into impossibly high places, and are having a ball. The boys aren't quite so bad, but the nine month old lads like to climb up to meet the girls in the Explorer cage next door.
Plans are afoot for the first Brandywine brood. I'm hoping to mate up Diggory and Caliadne mid to end of July, so that the kittens would be born a week or two after the August show. We'll have to wait and see if they agree with this.
I'm rethinking the breeding plans. Caliadne is lovely, but not the rat to begin my breeding with. So I'm looking for girls again and hoping that Diggs will still be interested when they come of age. If not, I still have the two AC boys.
Mystique got me again, after biting my son earlier in the week. She bit my finger, so next time she came along I held my hands out of the way and she got my arm instead. I just wish I could figure out what the trigger is!
I'm going to borrow a doe to breed from. Sooo much happier with things now.
I picked up Kitty this morning. She's the doe who I'm going to mate with Diggory. She is absolutely stunning! Russian Blue Essex, not the colour I was after but I was initially wanting to breed Essex and then couldn't find any. I was also told that it would be simpler to start with self and then add in any extras, but with my colour blindness I think I will always find working with markings simpler than working with colour. Kitty's mum, Glitter, has come along as well to keep her company, and as a second option if Kitty doesn't become pregnant.
Morse has finally left us. He was the longest lived of the six rescue kittens and made it to 23 months old. He seemed OK when I gave him his breakfast on Sunday morning, but when I returned from collecting Kitty he was lying dead in the base of the cage. I sat at the table with him for a while, stroking him goodbye. He was a real little treasure.
Last modified: Friday, 04-Jul-2008 08:15:54 BST
