Mimi Chokes

At about 9am, I gave my little girl Mimi a piece of homemade tortilla chip. She started to drool and fold her ears back and her mouth opened really wide. I have no car, but my husband works close. Finally at about 9:30, she cleared it. She is now grooming me. Her way of saying sorry for scaring the hell out of me. My husband was ready to fly home and take her to the vet. No more tortillas for her!

One of the touching parts of the event was that Junior dragged a blanket over to Mimi and spread it out so she could lay on it. Then he'd check her mouth and run to the cage door. He gets the hero award today!

Cricket's Great Adventure

When I came home last night, I gave Cricket, Worth and Tutu a nutball. They are currently in the smaller carrier cages in the kitchen so they can get used to each other. The carriers have a sliding door on one end as they are actually bird carriers that work great as rat carriers. Anyway, I went on my merry way.

The next morning I was moving the 2 bags of rat food on the kitchen table when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. I turned and Cricket and was running across the top of the cage!

I scooped him up and put him back in the carrier and realized I left his slider door open!

Once he was back in his carrier, I went to move the food again and realized the bottom paper bag had a hole in it. It turns out Cricket had jumped from his carrier, onto the overhanging plastic tray, ran across that, jumped out onto the stack of food bags, and then made a hole in the food bag on the bottom, grabbed a lab block and ran back to his cage! He had apparently been at it ALL night. When I looked in his carrier, he had over a cup and a half of food tucked in his blankets! I thought he took his food out of his dish and had hidden it in his blankets.

The intrepid Cricket now has a clip across the slider door, just to make sure that he didn't push it open.

All 4 of the cats were good and left him alone during his night antics!

Tutu AKA Ratatouille

Tutu, joined the village last night, March 25, 2009. He is a black, dumbo berkshire boy. He is about 2.5 years old and very sweet. He also ate a bunch of lab blocks right when he got here! Crunch...crunch....crunch. Since he is older than I thought he was, I am going to try to place him with Worth and Cricket to see how he does. I'll do that tonight.

I just wanted to put down that he came here last night.

I change the names of ratties that come in with particularly long names. Ratatouille was the name of several ratties I've gotten in the past 2 years, due to the film, which refers to the "dish." Tutu is not for the skirt, it keeps 1 phonetic syllable of his original name AND it is the name of a Nobel Peace prize recipient.

Cricket has come to town

Cricket is a sweet little rattie boy, about 1 and half years old. When Mosco passed last week I was trying to think of who could be his brother Worth's new buddy. But I'd actually wanted a single male to introduce Worth too as he is a little reserved. Enter Cricket. Cricket was put on CL because his previous owner wasn't able to spend time with him. I knew he was the perfect age to get along with Worth. Worth and I headed over and visited and now Cricket is home with us. We took a little jaunt to my friend's house to say hi since it had been two weeks since I'd visited. She made the kids some veggie and fruit plates and gave them a nut ball. They really enjoyed their picnic. She sent me home with a "rattie" bag of nut balls for the other kiddos.

For the rest of the night, both Cricket and Worth will stay in the carriers tonight and move into their new home tomorrow after they are treated with Revolution. They'll be set up in a "split" cage so that they can get really used to each other before moving in together.

Losses at Vermin Village

Sadly, my population of ratties are getting older so I will be experiencing a lot of loss here at vermin village over the next few months I'm sure. I have several rats over 2 years of age and many getting closer. Some are not in good of shape as others due to breeding and others simply to how they were treated before they were adopted and brought here. :(

I make sure the ones here know they are loved, they have huge cages in which to play if I don't get them out everyday and they get cuddles--if they tolerate it (I have about 5 that while they tolerate being picked up and pet occasionally don't go for the hugs and kisses others do and rather than stress them out, they just get their scritches.)

Earl Says Goodnight

Earl (the rattie to the right) left us this morning. He was fighting respiratory illness and was not doing so well. He is survived by his brother Duke. Earl and Duke were the oldest boys in vermin village. They were 2 years old when they came here. Their original owner was going to dump them in the "wild". A co-worker of his took them in to try to find them a home. They came here. Earl, even when he was really ill, could be found walking 10 minutes a day in his wobust wodent wheel.

Breathe easy little one and play at the bridge.

Isabella's Scream

My husband came rushing down to get me at about 3:20am. He was woken up by screaming coming from the rat room. Half asleep I stumbled up to the room and found Isabella, with her front paw, caught in the water bottle stand. How she got there is completely beyond me. Her paw is a bit pinched. I gave her some pain medicine to help her. She was so sweet. As I was working her loose she was frantically licking my hand. Poor little girl. I'll have to keep an eye on her paw in case it needs to be amputated. My poor little love. Thank God my husband heard her. It happened between 10pm and 3:30. Her paw is a bit swollen so I'm hoping it wasn't so long. :(

Mosco Exits to the Bridge

Mosco was one of the original ratties adopted into Vermin Village. He would have been 2 in July of 2009. He was preceded in death by his brothers Rico and Baxter. He is survived by his brother Worth. He survived the illness that swept through Vermin Village in the Spring of 2008. He and his brother could be found cuddling together in their hammock or igloo. He was in the picture featured in Veggie vs. Rattie. which was actually about the Corvallis Crew, but the picture was so adorable, I had to include it in the story. The calm after the storm.

Rest in peace little one. You will be missed. My giant floppy rattie boy.

Precious Passes

My only little lovey hairless girl, Precious, passed sometime today. The girls in Tickle Tower covered her with all of the blankets in the cage except the one she was laying on. I'm glad she got to spend the last couple of days of her life in the brand new cage surrounded by her friends. I was thinking of moving her, Shäst, and Starsky into a single level cage as they have all slowed down a bit. But now I don't think that is a good idea because one would be alone. Their lives are just too short. I have to say I'm glad she lived as long as she did, she was one of the ratties affected by whatever had swept through Vermin Village in the spring of 2008. I am guessing she was around 22 months, but she could be a bit older. She was adopted from Craigslist from a little girl that bred her to sell the babies back to the pet store. Of course that never pans out well so she rehomed her. Precious was a great girl and she and Shäst hit it off really well. They were soon joined by many other girls in Tickle Tower. It was for Precious and Shäst that I got the idea for the original design of my Quality Cage cages. So while Tickle and Mr. Chuckles get credit for founding Vermin Village, the girls get credit for my quest for the best cage.

Rest in peace little one.

Our Tickers Need Help & Tank and Mando Hijack the blog!

Our skin parent is taking a break from writing so I had Tank hop on the keyboard with me so we could enter our thoughts on this visiting the doctor business.

Mommy took us to the doctor to get our tickers rechecked. First, the nurse came and weighed us. It is so embarrassing that everyone knows our weight! We are now on heart medication for life. :( But hopefully with the medication, it will be a nice long life, so that is ok. Mommy is going to get our medications from nw compounders, http://www.nwcompounders.com/. The pharmacist there has a reputation for making our rattie medications taste good! And the medications get sent right to our door. (Damn, that sounds like the contact lens commercials.) We also like the fact they are a local company as our mommy likes to use local first.

Anyway, back to this doctor business. Ok, what is with that big metal cold thing being pressed to us? Please. It is so cold! Blow on it first! Oh all right, maybe it isn't that cold, but can't you imagine us thinking that? ::sigh:: [This typing is hard work! Between our 8 paws and 2 noses and keeping ourselves from swatting each other with our tails...] I myself have to say the scritches are nice. And the doctor is very gentle with us so maybe it isn't such a bad thing.

It is good to be a rat in mommy's house. Me and my brothers finally moved into our multilevel cage. OMG!! It is 3 stories with hammocks and a wheel and an igloo and tunnels and balls and stuff stuff stuff! We are getting new chew toys soon too. Tank and his brother and friend Knick have been living in their new cage already. They have a single level divided cage. But I have 6 brothers in my family! The cool thing is my rattie Mom, Babs, and my sister, Tina, live in Tickle Tower which is just across the way, so we can call each other whenever we want. Mommy adopted me and my brothers (Mommy calls us snowballs), my sister and mother last year from a nice lady in St. Helens. We were an accidental litter due mistaken gender of Babs when "he" was purchased from a feed store as a friend to our rattie Papa. But no matter, we are ok.

Uh oh, Mommy, just came in. Humph! She thinks we are going to pee on her laptop.

Off we go...........