I'm an accidental rat mommy!

[undergunfire]

Just posting Shiloh's order from me here, so you can all see how adorable it is :biggrin2:. I freakin' love the strawberry fabrics.

Shiloh....if you haven't seen your GM PM's, then check it .

 

[JadeIcing]

Too cute!!!

 

[SnowyShiloh]

Aww, they are cute, Amy! I'm sure my girlies will like them! So far they aren't crazy about hammocks yet, but love houses and things they can hide in, so the star dome homes should go over great. I've been giving them toilet paper tubes with a little TP left on them and some tissues and they love shredding them and putting them in the houses, so I think they'll like the snuggly fleece. We can't wait to get the new items!

 

[undergunfire]

My rats are the same, Shiloh....they like beds that they can burrow in. I always have double deckers, pocket hammocks, and cubes in the cage. I don't make SD's for them because I make so many of them for others, that I get burnt out .

Did you see my GM PM? I made the cube 7" all around because the 6" was going to be pretty tiny...so the 7" is a wonderful size . I'm making you up some fleecey toys, too. It will ship out tomorrow.

 

[SnowyShiloh]

Amy, great! It's fine that the cube is a bit bigger. It looks like we'll be adopting either 1 or 2 more girls when Annabell is better from her URI, and the potential new ratties are all full grown so the 7 inch cube will be good for them. I love how the fabrics turned out, I can't resist strawberries and cupcakes. I actually think the small SDH with the flowers and trees is the cutest, I really like the colors. The fabrics I bought to make my hammocks and bedding from is all kind of different. One of them is white with these big red fish on them and pink waves, it looks rather '60s.

I'm sure the babies will like their new things and the little fleece toys too! Sweet of you to send them. I will post photos of the girls with their new things when they get here.

 

[SnowyShiloh]

I'm taking a break from zip tying the hardware cloth to the cage now. Last night I cut out all the hardware cloth. I've only done the doors so far and my fingers are sore already! You know, I never even owned zip ties before I got the bunnies. Now I've probably used thousands of them!

 

[SnowyShiloh]

I finally finished the cage! Oh my gosh, it took about 5 hours to get the hardware cloth on the cage, assemble it, move it to the right part of the room (took a bit of maneuvering), and get everything into the cage. I can't believe it took so long! Glad I didn't know it was going to take that long when I started.

The baby girls are in the new cage. They look even tinier than before! I'll get some photos tomorrow, I'm too tired now and still have a couple things to do before I go to bed. Also I have 2 midterms tomorrow and don't get out of class until 8:30. I picked a good night to build the cage, huh? :disgust: I wanted the girls to move in though...

 

[SnowyShiloh]

Lalita and Annabell went to the vet today for Annabell's URI. The good news is that Annabell has only been on Doxy for 2 days and her gurgly breathing is already going away. She only made the sound once at the vet office even though she was probably pretty stressed out. I'm going to keep her on antibiotics for 2 weeks though. I'm glad we started treating the URI really early so it never had a chance to turn into something serious. She did well at the vet office. The vet loved her and gave her lots of kisses, it was cute.

The bad news is that poor Lalita, who came along for moral support, was utterly terrified and when we set her down on the scale to be weighed, she rocketed off the exam table and fell to the floor (she landed on a pad, thankfully) and hid behind a something in the corner. The vet got her out, but then she leaped out of her hands! Both times when she jumped, she SCREAMED. I had never heard a rat scream. It was so sad and she was so scared! She does fine at home when it's just Paul and I, but other people and obviously being in weird places freaks her out. Then when we got her home and they were back in the cage, I noticed the pan in the Ferret Nation has a little space on each side between it and the sides of the cage. I pushed it to one side, and unbeknownst to me poor Lalita was standing on the edge of the pan and I accidentally pinched her tail or foot and she squeaked :cry2 I didn't push very hard, stopped right when she squeaked, and Paul didn't even hear the squeak, but I feel sooo bad. I looked her over and can't find any damage. But that poor girl has had a bad day!

 

[undergunfire]

Oh now! Poor girls....I hope everything turns out okay!

That is one bad thing about the FN, is that it is so large & meant for Ferrets, that little rats can get hurt. Even with the CN, too.

 

[irishbunny]

Wow Amy I love those cage accesories you made! I really like the cube hidey house thing! Are they washable?

 

[undergunfire]

irishbunny wrote:

Wow Amy I love those cage accesories you made! I really like the cube hidey house thing! Are they washable?

Thank you :biggrin2:! Yep, everything is machine washable & dryer safe.

 

[Nela]

Amy, those are awesome :biggrin2:

Shiloh, I can't wait to see the setup. I'm sure it will have been worth the time it took :rose:

 

[SnowyShiloh]

Sorry for flaking on the cage photos! I've been too lazy to take photos so far. I need to get on it because the girls are growing so fast! They're so much bigger than when I got them. Still babies, but they've been growing well.

The girls are more skittish than normal today, I think because of their adventure yesterday. Lalita has a little bit of porphyrin around her nose right now. I suspect it's because she was so stressed out yesterday. Hopefully she isn't actually sick!

 

[irishbunny]

How are they now?
Got any more pictures? :inlove:

 

[peppa and georgie]

I love rats too they are gorgeous and those handmade cubes and beds are just amazing and sooo cute.
I love the ratty pics with the teddy best, they are so pretty and such girly rats.
I found a site that shows you how to make your own rat cage called a ratty heaven.
I cant find the link anymore though, it was like a tall wooden furniture cabinet, but with mesh doors and lots of shelves for levels etc.
Can we see some more pics they are great.

karen

 

[SnowyShiloh]

I promise to take photos of the girls later today! I can't believe I haven't taken any in like a week and a half. Normally that wouldn't seem like a lot of time, but they're growing so fast. Good news is I haven't heard Bella sneeze/cough (it sounds like a chicken clucking) at all in the past 24 hours, she's been on meds for 1 week now so that's good.

Oh and Amy, I found the strawberry fabric at Joann's today! It's so cute that I bought some of it and a coordinating dark pink-purple fleece so I can make matching hammocks and stuff to go with your cube The fleece was purply enough to not activate my Hate Pink response. I have no issue with bright pink being on the inside of hammocks and stuff, but I'm planning to use the fleece to line the shelves and pan and needed a shade I could live with. I also bought 2 other flannels and several kinds of fleece. One is hilarious, it's bright green with apples and little birds and owls and other weird 60s stuff, and the other is baby pink and gray with elephants. Elephants always win me over. I've decided I have to go back to Joann's tomorrow and am seriously considering buying some Volkswagen Beetle flannel too.

Tonight I made 4 fleecy things- 2 pouches, a pocket hammock and a long tube. I may post photos, they certainly aren't works of art. I used the no sew method with knotting: http://www.suzsugargliders.com/nosewaccessories.htm Let me tell you, it would have been way faster to just use the sewing machine. The little fringe is cute though and 3 of the items are a gift so of course they all have to be done in the same style.

That's probably enough blabbering about fabric for now. Let me say that I'm really enjoying having ratties again, even though I've already spent over $500 on things for them in the past 2 weeks :shock2: You know, giant new cage, things to put in cage, fabric, vet bills, medicine, food, temporary cage, litter, all that kind of stuff. Hopefully I'll be able to escape spending too much money on them for a while! All I can say is it was meant to be, because my tax refund arrived about 3 days before I got the girls so that's covered all their expenses so far.

 

[SnowyShiloh]

No baby rat pictures yet, I decided to take some photos of the hammocks I made for a gift and the battery in my camera died. If you can believe it, I've had the camera for nearly a year and have taken over 2000 photos, and the battery JUST NOW died for the first time! The reason I haven't been taking pictures of the ratties is I knew my battery was about to die and didn't know where the charger was because I haven't had to use it. Good news is I did find the charger so I should be able to take photos in a couple hours!

Here are wonky photos of the hammocks I made. There's a tube (it's longer than it looks, I have it curved in the photo), a pocket hammock, a corner hammock, and a hanging pouch. I think they turned out pretty cute. I just hope they stay knotted when washed! I know it isn't very impressive, but I came up with the idea for the pocket hammock and tube knot-style myself, though I'm sure a lot of other people have done them too. After making the pocket hammock, I realized it could have been a lot faster if I'd used one long piece of fabric folded over on itself rather than 3 pieces. Oh well, live and learn!

I made a little mini sleeping bag for my girlies as a practice run, I'll get photos of them in it later when the battery is charged.

 

[SnowyShiloh]

As promised, here are photos of the girls! I'll have had them 3 weeks as of tomorrow. They have grown SO much since I got them, they're at least twice the size and getting bigger every day!

A week ago they spent lots of time sleeping in the pink elephant, now they're a little too big...

Annabell:

peeping out of the bonding pouch:

Lalita (compare this photo to the one 3 weeks ago!):

Annnnnd, saving the best for last!

I will try to get some more tomorrow!

 

[irishlops]

Shiloh, are you trying to kill me with cutness????
there are lovely!

 

[peppa and georgie]

Sooo very cute xxx