- Jack is a rat with history. In all the rats
we've had, there have been a few really infamous one, and of those Eve
was among the most infamous. Her son Damian was also infamous, and
one of my favorite rats ever; his son is Jack. Actually Jack's pedigree
includes Eve twice (as Grandmother on his father's side and Great-Grandmother
on his mother's), but we don't need to mention that.
He shows his history beautifully; great type, large size, calm, even, wonderful temperament! He's a big Agouti Berkshire, just like his dad. The line nearly died out with him; Jes has some of his sisters, but they're too old too breed. I nearly thought he was (he didn't seem interested in one of Julia's females when she was put in with him), but now Toni's got a beautiful litter, fathered by Jack! He is getting on in age - he was born Halloween '96; he's not as spry as he was when he was younger, his coat isn't as shiny. But he's still a sweet old lug :-)
- Billie's my old lady. She's Agouti self (one
of my favorite colors, I like the silver tummy :-). I'm not entirely
sure how old she is, but I do know that her companion, Lily, whom I got
at nearly the same time I got her, died of old age last winter.
She's doing well considering her age, although she walks carefully and is rather frail in the way of elder animals. She has a tumor on her lower tummy, but it's rather small and doesn't bother her; she's had it for quite a while, and it doesn't seem to be doing any damage.
- Ashra's a pretty little Black hooded female.
She's actually Ashra the second; a school friend of mine (yet another one
I can include among my rat-converts) bought a rat, only to have it die
a few weeks later. She bought another; Ashra; but eventually could
no longer care for her, and so gave her to me.
That must have been... Lemme think... Last Summer. She was still adolescent in age then, so I'd estimate her to be about a year and a half total. She's a *very* friendly rat, and has gotten over her hyper-hyper-activeness! She was really hyper! Now she's just sweet and licky :-) Still *very* curious; she's always the first one to try to escape the cage when the door is open.
- Toni is the most recent addition the the rat kingdom,
although even she's been around a while; I got her last winter after Ashra's
companion Kimi died. Poor Kimi :-( In any case, Ashra was getting
lonely and I didn't have time to spend with her, so I went to my local
pet shop and bought Toni. That pet shop's a favorite of mine; they
only occasionally have rats, and these are ones that one of the employees
breeds herself; and they don't sell them as feeders. For you local
people, it's the Pet Supplies Plus on Plymouth here in Ann Arbor (had to
give them a little plug there!).
Toni is a Silver Fawn hooded. Actually the color is kinda neat; when I was going through some of my first rat books years ago, looking at the pictures, I decided that Silver Fawn was one of my favorite colors. I didn't even know Toni was a Silver Fawn at first, I just figured she was a "Tan" (our word for Beige or Champagne), but she soon molted into her adult coat, complete with silvery guard hairs. You'd think the color would be more common; all it is is the pink-eyed dilute version of agouti. The pink-eyed dilute version of black (out "tans") certainly seem to be common enough.
Toni's rather on the small side (for my rats, anyway), but very pretty. She's not overly tame; as I said, I got her as a companion for Ashra because I didn't have enough time for her... I didn't have much time to handle Toni, either! So she's not all that people-oriented. But she's not hand shy and doesn't mind being picked up/handled like some rats I've had, either.
She also recently had a litter with Jack; see the Toni's Litter page for more!
