Clockwise from left: Nelly, baby Xena and Franny. Nelly liked the camera!

One of their preferred sleeping areas was the topmost hammock-shelf. The space is only about 5” high— less when a cat is resting on top of the cage.

Counterclockwise from left: Booboo (Beatrice †), Nelly, Franny from behind... and baby Xena.

Snack time!
Visible: Miranda, Harpo and Nelly. Hiding: Booboo. Nelly loved the camera.
The ladder on the left leads to the fourth floor (Toilet Level). The one on the right leads out to the jungle gym (hamster cage).

Nelly and Zuzu. Nelly liked to romp and tag around with Zuzu; until Xena came along, she was the only one who sometimes joined Zuzu in the sleeping bag.
The horizontal ladder (left) leads out to Exploration Territory and the Backup Cage. The one on the right leads up to the third floor.

I thought Zuzu looked like a ferret... until I saw Xena reaching for a hard-boiled egg. Note the position of her feet. Her tail was probably working hard too!

Xena, here a mature two-year-old, looks worried at having the babies, Susanna and Thomasina, crawling all over her. Would she have been more worried— or less— if she had known that she would outlive Thomasina by three days?

In general it is Teddy who knows his way around the house and can always get back to the cage, no matter where he is. But Annabelle had to help him find his way back along the ratwalk.

Annabelle’s temporary name, until she got settled with the real one, was Funny Face. Here she is in a perfect photo op, doubling her resemblance to a badger.

Teddy, meanwhile…

Teddy may be Annabelle’s cousin, or possibly half-brother. They shared a tank at the pet store, but she looked a week or two older. Teddy in fact was so tiny that for 24 hours after I brought him home, I thought he was a girl.

This turned out not to be the case. He immediately got a cage of his own— and, being the only boy among four girls, was naturally named Teddy. Later he got neutered so he could live with the girls. That, at least, was the idea. Nobody objected to Teddy visiting, but he was not encouraged to sleep on the top-floor hammock-shelf. Instead he went off to the bedroom closet— that’s the human bedroom, not the rat bedroom— and made himself a comfortable nest. Remembering little Rocky, I didn’t gamble that he would always go to the cage when he was hungry or thirsty. Instead he got his own micro-habitat. And, after a month or so, Nyssa decided he could come sleep with everyone else.

Teddy has since grown into a big, squishy, squashy boy. He doesn’t weigh as much as Leela or Nyssa— nobody ever could— but it’s all nice comfortable couch-potato fat.

The Rat Formerly Known as Mini-Me started out as the runt of a too-young litter. At 4 weeks he was just 24 grams— less than an ounce. Aside from that, he looked exactly like Susanna, 20 times his size. Bit by bit he grew to be Wee Jock— short, of course, for “Not So Wee As He Used To Be But Smaller Than He Will Be Jock”— and is now settled into being Middle-Sized Jock. Because he was so tiny, he was allowed to live with the rest of the mischief for a week or two; later he had to go live in bachelor splendor until he was big enough to get neutered.

On the very day Middle-Sized Jock was scheduled for neutering, I stopped by the pet store and found a little boy rat up for adoption. For the past few weeks he’d been hustled about, from mass breeder to distributor to Big Chain Pet store to young owner whose parents wouldn’t let her keep him to hastily-scavenged bird cage and “Free To A Good Home” in yet another store. Well, I couldn’t risk him going to a not-so-good home, so into the transport carrier he went. He was very frightened and shy, but also very affectionate once you did get him hauled out of the cage. His original name was Turbo. I’ve got too many T’s already— including Teddy, who is currently with us— so he ended up as Yancey.

Then, just when I thought I was moving over to an all-male mischief for a while, another visit to the pet store sent me home with Grace. Usually I pick rats for their personalities. But this one looked so sweet— like a little grey mouse— that I had to buy her. The name followed naturally. She was supposed to be a friend for Annabelle, who is the liveliest of the rats in spite of being the oldest. But she prefers to stay quietly in the nest with Jock and Yancey.