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adventures in rat breeding
Mar. 24th, 2006 05:23 pmso, I have one definite whoops and one possible...
Definite: I loaned a breeding trio to a charter school in Dorchester for their genetics unit in life sciences. The teacher has a lot of experience with rats; he used to teach a genetics unit at the Oregon Museum of Science as part of a summer day camp there, and used rats to demonstrate inheritance of dominant and recessive traits.
The trio (ANR Meshi, ANR Raya, and ANR Rina) are among my favorite rats. Both of the girls had nice litters, nine babies each. Raya's litter has gorgeous marked blues. Rina... had a second litter of 13, twenty-two days after the first. Whoops! The teacher *didn't* know that female rats come into heat right after giving birth, and Meshi was still in with her. Shows me not to assume that someone who has bred rats in the past knows everything they need to know!
I am not terribly annoyed; Rina's doing fine, and I have a long waitlist, some of whom were not going to get rats until late summer because of the quarantine here. Many of the babies in the first two litters will be going home with the students, and placing another 13 babies should be doable. Dave (the teacher) even sent a note home with the kids about irresponsible breeding after Rina had litter number two. He's a good guy.
Possible Whoops: On the nights when I am really exhausted,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
deguspice will feed the rats for me. He did so last night, and this morning... there was this pretty white rat sitting on top of Porthos' cage. I was like, "Who are you and where did you come from?" It took me a few moments to figure out that it was Livana. deguspice didn't fasten the top hook on her cage, and she squeezed out. The three smaller rats who live with her stayed put (I assume. At least they were all in the cage...)
Now I have never had rats mate through the cage bars; at one point my set-up was such that it should have been happening all the time, but it never did. I hope my good luck stays with me, especially since Livana having babies would postpone my semi-quarantine end date.
Funny but not very PC humor about this: Livana is the "supposedly sterile" girl who went to live with Porthos last fall after he refused to accept any male cagemates. He was not much better with her; he not only beat her up, he knocked her up too. Porthos has been by himself ever since. I moved his cage into the rat room recently, and Livana has been **desperate** to get to him. So she got her chance last night. I have some lovely male rats, some very gentlemanly rat souls. But who does she pick? The "exciting" abusive one. Sigh...
Definite: I loaned a breeding trio to a charter school in Dorchester for their genetics unit in life sciences. The teacher has a lot of experience with rats; he used to teach a genetics unit at the Oregon Museum of Science as part of a summer day camp there, and used rats to demonstrate inheritance of dominant and recessive traits.
The trio (ANR Meshi, ANR Raya, and ANR Rina) are among my favorite rats. Both of the girls had nice litters, nine babies each. Raya's litter has gorgeous marked blues. Rina... had a second litter of 13, twenty-two days after the first. Whoops! The teacher *didn't* know that female rats come into heat right after giving birth, and Meshi was still in with her. Shows me not to assume that someone who has bred rats in the past knows everything they need to know!
I am not terribly annoyed; Rina's doing fine, and I have a long waitlist, some of whom were not going to get rats until late summer because of the quarantine here. Many of the babies in the first two litters will be going home with the students, and placing another 13 babies should be doable. Dave (the teacher) even sent a note home with the kids about irresponsible breeding after Rina had litter number two. He's a good guy.
Possible Whoops: On the nights when I am really exhausted,
deguspice will feed the rats for me. He did so last night, and this morning... there was this pretty white rat sitting on top of Porthos' cage. I was like, "Who are you and where did you come from?" It took me a few moments to figure out that it was Livana. deguspice didn't fasten the top hook on her cage, and she squeezed out. The three smaller rats who live with her stayed put (I assume. At least they were all in the cage...)Now I have never had rats mate through the cage bars; at one point my set-up was such that it should have been happening all the time, but it never did. I hope my good luck stays with me, especially since Livana having babies would postpone my semi-quarantine end date.
Funny but not very PC humor about this: Livana is the "supposedly sterile" girl who went to live with Porthos last fall after he refused to accept any male cagemates. He was not much better with her; he not only beat her up, he knocked her up too. Porthos has been by himself ever since. I moved his cage into the rat room recently, and Livana has been **desperate** to get to him. So she got her chance last night. I have some lovely male rats, some very gentlemanly rat souls. But who does she pick? The "exciting" abusive one. Sigh...
