Which one?

Yep ~ I imported my blogger entries over ~ wanted to see how easy it was on here.

Now I'm wondering which is better, blogger or wordpress? If I'm going to stick around awhile I may as well use the nicest. Any thoughts?

Do something about it

If anyone’s in my neck of the woods this weekend:

Mass Protest in Oxford City Centre

because they can’t fight back.

If you’re not anywhere near ~ but you want to get involved ~ on any level:

http://www.buav.org/
http://www.bava.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/index.html
http://www.navs.org.uk/home/
http://www.uncaged.co.uk/

Rat-Proofing

I definitely need to make some changes.

Faith came out for her first real ‘free range’ tonight. I think I’m much more suited to lazy bucks than manic does, lol. She’s small, and fast, and unendingly curious. I’m worn out! The trouble with our place is that it’s an ancient cottage and there are no end of hidey holes. There’s a fireplace in almost every room and just a million places to run and hide and get stuck generally. Things are fine for the boys, they come out, have a little run around for a few mins, come back to see if you’ve got any food and/or scritches for them ~ repeat a few times ~ before finally coming back to clamber onto your lap and have a snooze. They’re not particularly speedy and the flab stops them from squidging into teeny places.

My mission is to better ‘rat-proof’ our bedroom, as it’s the biggest room in the house and should keep her ladyship occupied. I’m having visions of razorwire and searchlights

It is done

I scoured the supermarket (looking for low salt/sugar stuff) and the petshop after work, parted with much cash, weighed and mixed et voila, homemade rat mix. Nogg likes it

They all tucked in actually, which is an improvement as no one has shown much interest in the Reggie Rat for the last few weeks.

It’s definitely more expensive…but if they like it, and it does them good, then I’m happy. I only made up a small batch tonight to see how it goes and it cost me around £15. The same amount of reggie rat would, I’m estimating, cost me a little under £1. Mind you, I should be able to make the same amount again with the bits I have left over. The expensive bits are the dried fruit, I’m sure you could just substitute fresh fruit as and when, if you prefer

The Tonks rat mega mix consists of:

Dried pasta twirls
Bran flakes
Puffed rice
Sultanas
Dried blueberries
Dried Cranberries
Dried apple pieces
Banana chips
Sunflower seeds
Pumpkin seeds
Burgess Supa Rat

I also got some soya milk for Faith but she’s not remotely interested. She still isn’t showing much interest in treats or fresh food either ~ 4 months in the pet shop and I suppose it’ll take some time to get used to anything other than the reggie rat she was fed. She’s doing well though, no trouble with the boys at all.

A healthier rat diet

With the Easter break from work, and with Faith settling down so quickly, I’ve had time to think about something I’ve been meaning to do for months now, and that’s get my rats on a homemade rat mix. Right now they have Reggie Rat as a staple, and they get fresh veg every night with either pasta, rice, chicken or fish.

I’ve been reading today how a healthier homemade mix can potentially extend a rat’s lifespan and help prevent illness,

Being a Brit this was a fantastic find ~ all the ingredients here have been modified for the UK and I should be able to get everything I need from a combination of my local supermarket and pet shop. I’m going to give this a go for sure.

One thing I read that I didn’t know about at all was that “regular soya in the rat’s diet has been shown to reduce the rate of mammary tumours significantly”. So, if I get some soya milk for her will this help Faith’s chances? and is it in any way harmful to bucks or can they have it too?

I also had no idea that chocolate is a mild broncodilator and can be given to rats in an emergency. Fortunately we’re never short of chocolate in the house

Cage pals

Well, things were going so well yesterday evening with free-ranging that we decided to try Faith in with the boys for the night. Their cage is in with us so we could hear if all hell broke loose overnight. It went brilliantly ~ Stan and Nogg are so easy going and Faith is settling in really well. It’s a large cage with plenty of room for anyone to get out of everyone else’s way if/when necessary. I was worried about putting her in there (Ferplast Jenny) because it isn’t easy to get a rat out of there if you need to, but this morning when we let Stan and Nogg out she just follwed them right out the door. It’s all good )

I’m still ‘nervous’ about having a female…I’m on constant ‘mammry tumour’ low level panic…but OH really wanted a doe and with our 2 boys being castrated it seemed to make more sense than introducing a new ‘complete’ buck into the family.

Wererabbits

Wallace & Gromit ~ as ever, pure genius. Maybe you need to be a Brit to fully ‘get’ these…I don’t know… I’ve always loved them.. The genius lies in the little details…imho..

http://www.wandg.com/

Brilliant.

So am I back?

In answer to some of your questions ~ yes, I’m back on a ‘public’ blog.
Most of you know I had a hard time awhile back, first with an internet ‘friend’ going nutso on me, then with a BE visitor having some fun at my expense (and the expense of my pets), and then once more with another ‘friend’ losing the plot. I got burned. I learnt a lot of lessons.

The thing is that I want to have a record, an archive, of my time with my pets. The easiest and most reliable (and yes, cheapest) way for me to do that is to use blogger. I’ve also been pretty unfair on my real friends these last few months by inflicing endless moves and endless usernames and passwords on them.

So ~ I’m here ~ I haven’t listed this blog anywhere, I’m not into huge amounts of hits and all comments need to be approved. This is purely a place for me to keep records and to learn from my experiences with the rats. It’s also, of course, a place for my friends and family to keep in touch. If anyone does stumble across this place by accident, and don’t like what they see, well they know what to do…click the damn ‘x’ and move on.

Having said that, my personal journal is staying over at the locked place, and if you’re a friend then you know where it is and have a way in. Some thoughts just don’t belong in a publicly accessible place!

This place is for the rats, and if people don’t like it they can…excuse my French….fuckin’ bite me.

Going well

Aside from a few token scuffles little Faith is doing well and had her first intro to the big cage with the boys tonight. Looking good. I think one more night on her own and then we’ll see about letting her in there for good tomorrow, all being well.

I need to read up on does, they’re really different and there’s a whole new host of female potential illnesses I need to learn about.

Had a great time at the parental units’ place today, and got possibly the best present ever, lol will post a pic when it’s all set up. Happy Easter everyone

New Girl

Noggin demonstrates a complete lack of chivalry.

Stan is better with her. She’s fearless though. For our first girl we weren’t sure what to expect. What we seem to have is a firecracker, she’s adorable and is no doubt going to be a handful.