Training with noises

Ronnie and Derek now associate a ‘clicking’ noise with food, as I’ve always made the noise when feeding them. Even if they’re dozy in their house and I click, they’ll now drag themselves out and over to the cage door as they know they’re going to get food (maybe a treat!). They also come over when I open the plastic boxes I store their food in, as they recognise the noise now.

They’re also now used to the noise of the front door being unlocked, so if they’re in their house when I come in, they’ll pop their heads out to see what’s going on. It’s a welcome sight to come back to!

This info about training and noises has been added to the Habits page.

Sleepy Treaty

Watch below to see Ronnie and Derek stirring from their slumber for some ratty apple treats.

Ronnie and the crisp

Ronnie had half a crisp this evening as a treat – he seemed to enjoy it!

Gagging for cucumber

Ronnie and Derek enjoyed having their cucumber tonight!

Porphyrin around Derek’s nose

Yesterday evening, Derek had a dried, browny-red substance around his nose. It looked like dried blood at first, but was actually porphyrin which is a mucus-like substance. It can be a sign of excessive stress or a respiratory infection, but Derek had no other symptoms.

I cleaned his nose and, this morning, it was still clean. The internet assures me the porphyrin release was likely just a one-off, due to temporary irritation in Derek’s eye caused by something such as a piece of bedding or an eyelash getting in his eye, or maybe he scratched it while self-grooming.

As always with this sort of thing, I’ll keep an eye on Derek and make sure it was just a one-off.

This info about porphyrin has been added to the Care page.

Alert and Sleepy

This morning, Ronnie was feeling alert while Derek was the opposite…

Click thumbnails to enlarge. More photos on the Photos page.

Human fighting

Ronnie and Derek enjoying play-fighting with each other (more info here), but have recently started to often roll on their backs in the cage when I go to pick them up, so I can ‘groom’ them in the way they groom each other while fighting. Watch a video of this below.

Homely Cucumber

Ronnie and Derek have been enjoying some home-grown cucumber over the last few weeks. The variety is La Diva and the plant produced a good crop which have lasted in the fridge for many weeks.

Click thumbnails to enlarge. More photos on the Photos page.

Good evening from the Ratbags!

Click thumbnails to enlarge. More photos on the Photos page.

Mint plant

Rats enjoy eating herbs and I bought a mint plant which Ronnie and Derek were interested to explore. Ronnie ate some mint but wasn’t very impressed, but Derek loves it and had a good time searching through the leaves and picking some to eat. Watch the videos and photos below!

Click thumbnails to enlarge. More photos on the Photos page.