Happy Raturday!

Welcome to a new weekly blog post I'm calling, Raturday! I've seen Caturday and while that's really cute, I think the rats needs some photo time so everyone can see how cute these little animals are. I've gotten permission from Rat Logic's fb page to share their pictures on my blog. So get ready to smile because these are cute. 

*click pictures to enlarge*

Scribbles Had An Eye Allergy

A couple of weeks ago the winds picked up around here and had all of us sneezing and our eyes watering. Even one of my rats seemed to have an allergic reaction to all the dust and allergens in the air. Both of his eyes got a porphyrin gunk around them but I could see there were no cuts and it wasn't inflamed or hurt and there was no pus or infection. So I washed his face off, and changed his bedding, hoping that would help with any dust of allergens.

His other eye started to heal up and stop producing so much porphyrin right away.

But his other eye kept getting a build up around it for a couple of days and he would let me take a wet paper towel and wash it off. because he has white fur around his eyes, the fur got stained from the porphyrin and it looked like it was worst than it was.

But after a few days, I didn't have to clean as much off because he didn't have that much on his face or around his eye and he started to look much better. It's mostly cleared up now and I think he liked it when I cleaned his face because he'd lay his head down and just let me wipe off his face and then lick all over my hands. "You cleaned me, now I'll clean you." lol 

Scribbles is feeling much better now. 

Weekly Rat Facts: Product Review: Ecotrition Yogies

There are several different types, flavors and brands of yogurt treats but my rats like the berry flavored Yogies. Now while these are for rabbits and they are bigger than the small ones for rats, I get these sometimes because they are cheaper than their rat sized counterparts so I just cut these bigger yogies into smaller rat size pieces and save some money while getting the yogies that my rats like. 

When I go find the rat yogies on sale or at a great price, I do buy those but buying these is just as good. The first thing you notice when you open the bag is how good they smell. I'm not even kidding, these Yogies smell like fresh berries and so I decided to try a piece of one and I have to tell you, it wasn't bad for a rat treat. 

No, I don't usually go around sneaking bites of my rats food, it's usually the other way around but I was curious so I can tell you that these taste pretty good and it's no wonder rats love them. 

Yogies are a good treat for getting a reluctant rat to trust you, eat out of your hand, get used to you and as a treat just for being cute. 

Freebie Friday!

Welcome to another edition of Freebie Friday, where I tell you what free samples and full sized products I received in the mail and how you can get them too. Someone asked me why I do a 'Freebie Friday" each week, so I'll tell you.

A while back I listed all the free samples and wins that I had received that previous year and so many people didn't believe that I could have gotten so many free things. So I decided to prove it by taking a picture every week and sharing the sites that I found the links to the freebies at. So now you too can get great free samples coming to your mailbox each week.

  You can find links to samples like these at Hey It's Free and Freebie Shark.

This week I received:

Refresh Towelette.
Sample of Tide Laundry detergent
A bottle opener and wrench in one tool from Copenhagen
Sundown Adult Multivitamins

Did you get anything free this week?

RIP Marbles

I adopted Marbles and his 3 brothers from a family friend a little more than 2 years ago and they were already 2 years old so Marbles was an old boy. When I first got them, he was one of my really shy boys and wouldn't let me touch him at all. He even hid himself when I came over to the cage to say hi. He was hiding behind this cube and then he realized I had a yogie treat for him and he slowly came out to get it. 

This was Marbles 3 brothers. Fang, Bandit and Patches...one by one they all passed away until only Marbles was left. All you can see of Marbles in this picture is his butt in the background. lol 

He was always very cautious when coming out but curiosity always won and if we left him alone he couldn't help but come out and explore when we left the cage on the couch for them. 

That's him climbing up the side of the cage...Silly boy.

Marbles is on the right and his brother Patches is on the left. They were my rex boys, meaning they had sparse curly hair and curly whiskers. 

Marbles quickly got used to us and would come running over to see what good treats I had brought them. 

He still didn't like to be handled much but that was just his personality. He would still come out and walk all over us and play with his brothers on the couch. 

His picture is the one I used to use for my Twitter Wednesday posts. 

He was a real sweetheart and those missing patches of hair on his face made him unique I'm going to miss his little chuffing noises that he would make when he came out looking for a yogie or treat. He lived a long, happy life and my life is better for having had him in it for this short time. 

For the last few months of his life he was getting around a lot slower because he had hind leg degeneration and then he stopped eating anything but soft human foods. Then he stopped using the water bottle and I had to use a medicine syringe to give him something to drink every 4 hours so he didn't become dehydrated. He was very pampered and loved in the last few months of his life and he loved it. I wanted to give him as much time with us as possible. I think he might have even stayed around a bit longer if he hadn't developed a tumor on his shoulder recently. He was too old and not good enough health to make it through a surgery to remove it but it didn't seem to bother him at all. 

Because of his hind leg degeneration, he couldn't walk around very well and he would end up pooing and peeing in his bed which meant I had to give him a partial bath several times a week if he got anything messy on him. 

He was a grumpy old man but I loved him.

Good bye my sweet boy.

Product Review: Tropical Carnival Hoops and Honey Treats

Tropical Carnival is the other brand of bagged rat food that I buy because my rats like it and I can use it sparingly as a treat for them along with the Oxbow rat food that I give to them every day. 

Rats like a variety of foods and I see no reason not to give them a treat here and there. A small bag like this one will last me all month with 4 rats. They get treats but not the same one every day and some days their treats will be a yogie or pudding but my rats like this so I keep buying it for them. 

I use this treat along with others to hide in their cage to give them something to do, to hide inside toilet paper rolls, to hide at the bottom of the food dish *they can smell it down there and always find it* or to help a new rat get used to me by hand feeding and using as a treat to get them to climb out of the cage. 

They always smell fresh when the bag is opened and have pretty colors that can be strung up on rat toys for them to play with and bite off. 

Product Review: Oxbow Essentials Adult Rat Food

For a long time I used a different bagged food for my rats and they would pick and choose what little bits to eat and what to leave behind. So when a friend told me about Oxbow, I figured I would try it. I mixed a little in with the other rat food they were getting to see if they would slowly start eating it and they all did. Now I feed all of them Oxbow and give a little of the other bagged rat food as a treat since it has sunflower and pumpkin seeds in it. But I use the other food as a treat and don't give it to them all the time. 

From everything I have read on their website and from other rat enthusiasts who do reviews of this rat food, Oxbow constantly evaluates their formula to make sure that rats are getting the best possible food to keep them healthy. This rat food always smells fresh when I open the bag and has a pleasant smell to it. 

The best part is unlike Harlan Teklad lab blocks, my rats will actually eat this rat food. 

Neighborhood Happenings

So you might remember I told you all about my neighbor who thought the dog house was something her daughter was going to play with? Well she quickly figured out that wasn't going to work so she is using it for a shed to store her garden supplies. But she has a nice garden going now and said if anything grows, she'll share the vegetables with us. 

She even has one of those tomato plants hanging from the tree. she planted some Oleander bushes in back there and put some white rocks around the bottom of them. She said she has vegetables growing in some of those planters but I don't know what kinds.They seem to be growing pretty good though.

Then 2 new people moved in across from me and they put out two Buddha statues in front of their door as well as a plastic container.  I just hope no one around here steals them. 

Happy Raturday!

Welcome to a new weekly blog post I'm calling, Raturday! I've seen Caturday and while that's really cute, I think the rats needs some photo time so everyone can see how cute these little animals are. I've gotten permission from Rat Logic's fb page to share their pictures on my blog. So get ready to smile because these are cute. 

*click pictures to enlarge*

My Daughter turns 23 Today

Now that my daughter is a mommy, she will understand how I feel when I look at her and see the beautifully smart woman she has turned into. 

Happy Birthday

Weekly Rat Facts: New Toys and Beds

I bought a couple of fleece cuddle pouches for the rats to play with when they are out on the couch with us. Lucky got in it and stayed there for quite a while. Even took a little nap.

He didn't mind me taking pictures either, he looks like he smiled for this one. 

Then when I had Flower out she went right in it as well. She likes to climb inside my shirt and run around so I had a feeling she would like this and she did. 

I like finding new toys and places for them to hide in, they seem to like it too. All except for Scribbles..that boy wouldn't even get on it let alone inside it. He kept walking around it and sniffed it like it was going to bite him. Silly boy.

Freebie Friday!

Welcome to another edition of Freebie Friday, where I tell you what free samples and full sized products I received in the mail and how you can get them too. Someone asked me why I do a 'Freebie Friday" each week, so I'll tell you.

A while back I listed all the free samples and wins that I had received that previous year and so many people didn't believe that I could have gotten so many free things. So I decided to prove it by taking a picture every week and sharing the sites that I found the links to the freebies at. So now you too can get great free samples coming to your mailbox each week.

  You can find links to samples like these at Hey It's Free and Freebie Shark.

This week I received:
A package from Smiley360 with 2 samples of Sundown Adult multivitamin gummies.

I also received this bag, notebook, pen and chocolate bar from Steena Holmes for being on her street team and helping promote her books. 

So did you get any free samples or other freebies this week?

Product Review: Brown's Tropical Carnival Pet Mouse and Rat Food

I use to use this as a bagged rat food for all of my rats until I found Oxbow Regal Rat Food. I switched because studies have shown that dried corn is bad for rats and can even cause cancer and this rat food has dried corn in it. Now I will say that I still use this rat food as a treat for my rats because they like the pumpkin and sunflower seeds as well as some of the other bits, but I pick out all of the dried corn before I give it to them. 

Rats like a variety of foods in their diet and I've had rats live to be 4 years old feeding them the mixture of foods and treats that I feed them. I would not recommend feeding this exclusively as a rat food, only as a treat and only if you pick the dried corn out of it. 

Targeted FB Statuses

Did you know that you can choose who see's what status posts you make just by adding them to different friends lists? 

If you want some people to know something but don't want everyone to know, you can add some friends to different lists in your friends. Like I added some people to the list "Close Friends" and when I post a new status I can pick who see's it. 

After adding the people you want to the different lists "Close Friends, Family, Acquaintances" then when you post a status update you click on the little drop down menu and pick who you want to see the status you are posting. Only the people who are in those lists will be able to see it. 

This way if you have friends or family that you don't want to have to explain why you posted a picture of the new skull tattoo you just got on your back, you just pick "close friends" as the only people who can see your picture and make sure you haven't added that person or people to that list. 

Large, Squishy Rats

After reading some of the comments yesterday and laughing about the comments on the size of that one rat...I thought I would share some of my rats past and present pictures. These were and are my big boys. Not all rats get big and squishy but some of them do. Male rats are more likely to get a bit bigger when they get older because they become lap rats that just want to lay in your lap and be petted, while female rats have too much energy and are always on the run thus keeping their slim figures. lol 

Above are Bandit on the left and Marbles on the right. Bandit got quite chunky. 

Bandit was a food hog. Meaning when I put a plate of food for dinner or treats he would push all the other rats out of the way and hide as much of it in the house as possible. But all the other rats knew where his stash was and they would go raid it when they wanted. lol 

Lucky and most rats look a lot bigger when they are laying down or completely relaxed because their skin pools around them if they are a bit on the chunky side. Even small rats with less fat on them seem to look quite chunky when they lay out flat.

But he's still limber enough to bend himself into the craziest positions. Those are his back feet up by his face. Yep, he bent himself in half to clean his feet and fell asleep like that. 

My rats might get chunky because I "share" my food with them. lol 

But when Lucky stand tall you can see he's really not as big as he seems to be when he's laying down. 

Maybe he should lay off the Birthday cake?

Bandit posed for pictures this last Christmas and he was a big boy.

This was Oreo, a rat I had a few years ago. He was a big boy too and like I said, they get reaaaaly lazy in their old age. He fell asleep like this.

Lucky looks fat and happy in his hammock. 

Now the only seriously big rat I've ever had was Jasper. That's him standing next to a paper towel tube that is 11" long. He was 19" from tail to nose and weighed 3lbs. But he ran around, was able to clean himself and lived to be almost 3 years old which is a good old age for a rat. I think his ancestors must have been from the nuclear testing facility here in Las Vegas. lol 

Jasper was a sweet rat and was always giving kisses. My daughter made this picture. He was sitting there cleaning himself and all she did was put her hand near him and he started licking her. 

Lucky looks really big when he rolls himself up in a ball, but he's not as big as Jasper was by any means. 

All your comments yesterday about big rats, just made me smile.