The Rattie Diaries

And now they’ve really gone too far. 

For months now, Tabitha’s bedroom has been geared around the rats.  We have dim, rat friendly lighting in there.  There is half an apple tree which can in no way be construed as beneficial to Tabby.  And a whole plethora of shoeboxes and stuff, likewise not intended for human use. 

But what do the little blighters do? 

Did I mention that they like to shred carpet? 

I couldn’t understand where the piles of… um, pile, were coming from; none of the previously damaged areas  seemed to be increasing in size. Finally I thought to check under the wardrobe…  Arrgh!  Not good.

Added to the carnage in her underwear drawer, the carpet was the last straw.  Rats!  Consider yourselves barred!

There aren’t many places left where they haven’t been banned, so it’s the kitchen now.  And the stairs.

We wouldn’t have minded about Tabby’s carpet, it wasn’t that great anyway, but here’s the thing.  We recently installed a high sleeper bed in her room.  It took all day to put together, and you can’t shift it without heavy lifting gear.  The only way we could physically replace her carpet would be if the rats ate the bed too.  Come to think of it, they have made a start…

In my last post I was talking about rats and bones.  Here is the sequel.

I was recently approached in the school playground by a friend.  Who had been saving chicken bones for me.  Or rather, for the rats.

Apparently Tabitha has been busy touting for bones for the rats.  Well, we have chicken every week, and one bone per rat, once a week is ample…

My face must have dropped about a mile as I envisaged everyone we know saving all their bones for us; walking home from school bearing multiple bags of carnage, a mobile ossuary…  Local children would tail me from a safe distance, I would be known as the Bone Lady, and accusations of witchcraft would follow…

My kind and thoughtful friend realised that all was not going to plan, and was swift to reassure me that she had washed the bones…  I hope I contrived to be gracious in refusing this generous offer, but as for Tabitha…

“Taaaabbbbby!!!!”

One of the treats which our girls really enjoy are bones.  In particular, chicken bones.  As it happens all the species of girls within our house enjoy gnawing on bones, but I should clarify that I am in fact talking about the rat variety.

Having divested our chicken bones of the majority of the meat we usually pass a few on to the rats, who show us how it’s really done.  There is a method.  First they polish off any surface shreds.  Then they extract the marrow.  And if they’re really keen they consume the bone too. 

Fascinating as this is, the real reason for this post is to include the photos.  How cute is that?  Like a miniature dog!

I will never forget the first time we gave the rats liver.  Rarely have I seen such ecstatic rodents. 

The big slab of beef liver had been cooked in the microwave, which was one of the vilest tasks to ever fall to my lot.  As it cooked a frothy green scum formed on the surface, and oh, the smell… 

This repellent substance duly sliced into strips, and placed gingerly in the rats’ suspendable food dispenser, I doubtfully offered it to our furry friends, wondering what they had done to merit such unkind treatment…

As previously indicated, the little fur balls were reduced to a feeding frenzy.  There was plenty of liver for all, but they each wanted all of it, and a running battle ensued, with rats snatching tasty morsels from each other, and attempting to cache all the liver for their own personal consumption, in a delayed orgy of covert feasting.  To put it mildly, I was surprised, but the effect on the human girls was more surprising, not to mention constituting a horrifying unintended consequence…

“What is that, Mummy?” was swiftly followed by, “And why have you never cooked any for us?”

To add to the pressure, Mark, who has requested liver unsuccessfully on many occasions, was incensed that he appears in the pecking order somewhere beneath the rats.

Inevitably, I was ultimately forced to bow to public demand, attempting to render liver fit for human consumption, be such a thing possible…

Faced with a plateful of congealing grey revoltingness I rather hoped that the kids might back down.  But no.  Tabitha and her father genuinely liked this gak, and for Phoebe, pay-back time had arrived in spades.  Years of being required to eat vegetables culminated in this; her mother being forced to set an example.   As I choked and retched my way through the wretched concoction there were those who begged me to just leave it, (but only after the photographic evidence had been procured.)  Phoebe on the other hand, enjoyed every moment, and took a great deal of satisfaction in insisting that I consume every morsel.

I had hoped that this would settle the matter for good, but no.  Pressure is beginning to mount to relive the liver experience.  Thanks, rats.

Nb.  I do have the perfect photo to illustrate this post…  not a chance!

The burnt offering would be me. 

We had baked beans yesterday.  “We” as in all of us. 

Rats can eat almost anything humans that can, with a few very significant exceptions (so be careful) but things that aren’t good for us tend to be worse for rats.  Rats are just as prone to obesity as humans, and more prone to tumours, so avoid refined foods, added sugar and salt, etc.  

So sorry, I seem to have drifted into lecture mode!

To get back on topic, perfectly happy as I am for the rats to have the beans, I don’t want them exposed to the sugary un-goodness of the allegedly-tomato sauce.  So I always wash their beans under the tap.  This usually works well, but any slight deviation from procedure can result in disaster. 

For future reference, the correct method is to spoon beans onto your hand from the can.  Definitely not steaming hot beans from the pan.  Suffice it to say that the resulting little dance was not very cool…

But the rats enjoyed their tucker regardless, and did not seem in the least perturbed by the accompanying aura of anguish!

Apparently, Phoebe, my journalist daughter, is about to immortalise our girls in print.  To this end she has demanded uploaded photos, which she will be able to access from, er, newspaper HQ.  And here they are. 

It should be noted that Phoebe clearly intends to share in the ratties’ celebrity.

And why not?  The ratties, it may be observed, are taking it in their stride.  Let’s hope the fame doesn’t go to their heads…

Usually, when the time comes to file the evening’s rat plan, the girls (human) step up to the mark.  But occasionally they ask for a night off.  Which is not unreasonable.  They take their rattie responsibilities, as a rule, very seriously.

On such occasions the job of rat exercising falls to me.  I like to entertain our rattie friends on the stairs.  (Since they developed a taste for chewing cables their living room privileges have been revoked.)  Once every one has gone to bed all the doors can be closed and the rats have the run of the stairs, the hall, and the landing.

I sit towards the top of the stairs, with a book and a blanket, and everyone is happy.  More or less.  The only problem is the lateness of the hour which, whilst agreeable to nocturnally inclined critters, is less conducive to my well-being.  On occasion, if reading the wrong book, I have been known to drift off…

This has never been a major problem, until it recently crossed my mind that there could be pitfalls associated with sleeping amongst rats.  Having woken up with my head on the carpet, I was quite startled to find myself eye to eye with a rodenty face.  Staring intently.  What is she thinking of doing?  What has she already done?!

Happily, it transpired that I had not been relieved of my eyebrows, but I am now considerably less sanguine about rat-napping….

Glancing into the rat cage today, we were horrified to notice a bright blue blodge.  On Moonshine’s tail.  Mysterious.  Nobody had noticed it during the course of the previous evening, so we assumed that it must have come from one of the rat toys, which come in lurid shades, courtesy of a vegetable dye which has a tendency to run.

Mystery, apparently, solved. 

Later that same day, rounding up the rats after their evening constitutional in Tabby’s room, we discovered that the Phantom Blue Blodger had been at it again.  In addition to her tail, Moonshine was now  sporting in her fur some rather fetching blue streaks.

But Phoebe does not believe in phantoms, and had already donned her detective hat.  Tracing the cause back to the rats’ litter box, she found some tubs of craft paint, which had unwittingly been left on Tabby’s desk.  (The rats aren’t supposed to be able to get up there, but they always find a way…)  This correlated with the blue marks on Tabitha’s desk which, appearing several days ago, had failed to be recognised as rat footprints… 

Between them, our girls had eaten a whole tub of yellow, and most of the blue, apparently over the course of several days…  Luckily, intended for kids, the paint was non-toxic.

However, I am anticipating a very colourful cage cleaning out session later on this week…

Today we tidied Phoebe’s room.   Tidied?  The word Mark used was “purged” and he may have right on his side.  You think all kids’ rooms are untidy?  Let me draw you a word picture.

Playing hide and seek with Phoebe.  She vanishes.  Really vanishes.  In the end we had to plead with her to show herself, because I was having visions of alternate dimensions and getting kinda stressed.  It turns out that, in order to hide, Phoebe had merely crawled under the huge pile of cr*p which passes for her room.  This is not your ordinary kind of untidiness.

So, crashing around, filling bin bags, fielding flak from Phoebe (mostly of the verbal kind) we whirled into action.  Enter the rats. 

In retrospect it occurs to me that Phoebe’s room was a veritable rat heaven.  Their own personal dump.  But of course, they have never been let loose in there; (see above.  If we couldn’t find a Phoebe gone to ground, a rat would be… interesting.)  But on the day of decimation it was very far from a rattie paradise.  The whirling and crashing et al. 

Coco was not happy.  She was making short darting runs across the cage, in a very agitated manner.  She clearly wanted to watch the proceedings, but was too scared, hence the flighty nature of her behaviour.  Poor Coco.  Thinking to soothe her I spoke softly and poked my finger through the bars.  Swiftly withdrawn, as she launched herself at the offending digit, teeth first!

My reactions were nearly as fast as hers, so teeth glanced off moving target, and I got a nice impression of her fangs in my flesh, for my trouble.

Hm.  Well, that’s a new one.  Not what I would call a bite, since there was no blood, but I think it was intended as such.  A rather sobering experience.   A rat bite can be nasty.  The teeth are long and can go deep…  

So we all learnt something today.  Phoebe is going to make greater efforts to hide her junk from us, I’m going to approach stressed animals with more sensitivity, and Coco has discovered that big piles of rubbish are not as delightful as she had previously thought!

Cleaning out the rats’ cage today I found their stash of contraband.

The Brownie uniform I knew about.  A couple of months ago Phoebe came to me and demonstrated a hitherto unsuspected talent for understatement. 

“Mummy,” quoth she, “the rats have nibbled my Brownie uniform.” 

For “nibbled,” substitute, “ripped apart and shredded.”  The sleeve was completely removed above the shoulder, and amongst those rats is no seamstress.  Ruined beyond all hope of salvation, the Brownie jacket was permitted to remain hanging next to the rat cage, and much sport they have had of it over the last few months.  Only the smallest scrap now remains, which was obviously not enough to appease their voracious jaws…

And I, having castigated my daughter, proceeded to commit the same error…

On the cage floor I found not only shredded brown fleece, but also pink.  Looking suspiciously like one of their hammocks.  But their hammock is still in situ…

Yes, but what about the spare hammocks, piled next to the cage…   Or should I say,”which were piled next to the cage?”  Damnit.  Will we never learn?

So tonight the rats are curled up in a jury rig hammock made from the hood of an ex-baby fleece.  Our girls look very cosy, having crawled in between the fleece and the lining.  They should make these things for humans!