My little lady started out life as the only girl bought with 3 boy baby rats at the petstore. They ALL got to live in a crittertrail together. Once they grew up a bit, they graduated to 2 brothers in one crittertrail and Sweetie and her brother in another. This meant that poor Sweetie was perpetually pregnant. Their food was cheezits, and bits of sandwich shoved through the bars of the cages when the kids remembered. My friends Shelley and Vanessa helped me deliver all 4 of these rats from this hell.
I had NO clue what was going on but was assured that the female was likely pregnant. I booked her an e-spay appointment for Monday morning (she was arriving on Friday afternoon) and when they asked for a name, I blurted “uhhh…Sweetie”.
Then they arrived,…TINY little rats, even the males…nervous but still sweet.
Got Sweetie home and took a good look at her…”likely pregnant”?
This sweet girl even lay quietly in my lap and let me place the flats of my fingers against her belly. Yep those bubs were moving and kicking up a fuss in there…sigh. No e-spay for this girl.
She gave birth early the next morning, so I woke up to a proud deflated girl (199 grams to 166 grams) and 8 teeny bubbers. Sadly the runt never made it over the 24 hour period and died.
She was a fantastic gentle mom to her little family, and just wonderful with me. I named the little crew Sugarbabies after DolciLady’s lovely old man. The Sugah’s they became for short
She was soo proud of herself when they were born and would run to the cage door for pats and congratulations.
Look what I did!!!
Licking baby butts is very serious business
The kids grew up and grew bigger than their mom in no time.
Sweetie could hold her own against most rats, even the bigger Jaffa from HVRR
But sadly my sweet happy girl started to age very fast and too young…I hated it! She didn’t seem to care.
And age and respiratory issues finally caught up with her so after a couple of days of loving I let her go todayl.
I will always think of her as my teeny tiny waif
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