Third and Final Ratty Girl: Jenny

When my daugher picked out Sam some 3 months ago, I found a beautiful little hooded (black head, white body) rat with curly hair.  The curly hair is really different.  (It's apparently only the occasional rat that comes out curly, and none of the adult rats there seem to have curly hair.)  But we only wanted one rat at the time, so we brought home our beautiful Sammy:

Since then, we have realized that it was not fair to Sam to leave her alone, and I set out to find another curly haired rat.  We've stopped in at the pet store a few times, without success.  Then on Monday, I found my girl.  But she was still too small to remove from her mom.  So I told the ladies at the pet store that I would be back Friday, and take her if she was ready.

At the same time, my daughter found the little dumbo eared girl, which she adored, and wanted as well.  So we ended up returning for her on Tuesday.  She is called Berry. 

Then on Friday, we returned for my little girl, Jenny.  She is the most adorable rat I've seen, with her curly hair - and even curly whiskers!

Now that we have the 3 girls, I think we are done.  Our household is complete now.

Berry and Jenny are too small to join Sam in her cage (they could squeeze between the bars), and after some initial skirmishes between Berry and Jenny, we had all 3 in separate cages for a couple of days.  Then this morning, I moved Jenny into Berry's (hamster) cage, because she had dumped over her small water dish (in a bottle cap) in her tiny cage (which is actually a carry-cage), and in the larger cage with Berry, she would have a more consistent supply of food & water.

There were a few tense moments, just before we headed to church this morning, watching them pouncing and rolling on each other, some foot and tail biting, and some squeaking.  But by the time we had returned, they were both together in their makeshift hammock formed by a sock with the toe cut out.  So I think they should be good now.  When the two get bigger, they will join Sam in the multilevel cage.