Rats don't "show" when they go into heat - that is to say, there's no blood. Sometimes, though, you can tell. They wiggle their ears and sometimes try to hump each other (though I don't know why). Rats go into heat at around 6 weeks I believe, or even 5, so Ruby will have definitely gone into heat.

Really, there isn't very much you have to know about this. They eat the same food. They breed out of heat and in heat. Do you have male rats? If you do, the male rats may be able to smell the female rats when they're in heat and try to get to them, and the female rats go a bit nuts and try to get to the men. If you don't have males, there;s absolutely nothing to worry about.

 

No males yet, so that's not a problem. Thank you so much! I was kinda freaking. Lol So that means even my little baby already has... Weird.

 

I know, it's kind of odd to think about sometimes. That's why you have to separate brothers and sisters at about 5 1/2 weeks, so they can't impregnate each other. Kinda weird to think about.

 

Haha true story.

Keysong, is that rat in the picture yours? Beautiful!

 

Well, she was one of my old rats, named Cheddar. She had to be pts after her inoperable mammary tumour got too big... but she was lovely. Thank you I've just been informed that she's a lilac or pearl merle hooded. It's all rather fancy terminology.

 

Oh I'm so sorry! She was gorgeous. She looks like a Lilac merle to my very un-trained eye. There is always a fear that something will go wrong with one of my pets, bu tI've been lucky so far to have very healthy ones.

 

Well, I've had mostly healthy rats. Pearl (who was actually my sister's rat) got pneumonia and eventually died from it, and Cheddar had her mammary tumour, and now Imogen has her stupid persistent URI. I'm trying to get it under control...

It's kind of funny to think that you rarely ever hear about lilac merles because they're not very common, and yet I just got my Cheddar from a pet store (before I knew how bad they were).