At the beginning of 2020, I decided that after three years without rats, I was finally ready to get some more!
I had a cage ready so it was just a case of getting some rats. Then at the start of February, whilst scrolling through social media, I found a rat. And I instantly fell in love with him. He was white with a black hood over his head and shoulders.
When I saw the post about this rat, I knew I wanted him. At that point, it was just an appeal to find his owner. He had clearly been well handled so it was likely that someone was missing him. I phoned them up anyway to let them know I was interested in adopting him. I was told I’d need to wait the one week until his appeal was up but that if no one claimed him, he would be adoptable.
I spent the week excitedly checking the rescue’s website to see when he’d go up for adoption. In the meantime, I also got two gorgeous little rats – Scout and Bailey.
As soon as I saw that he’d gone up for adoption, I phoned the rescue. I got an appointment to visit him on the 19th February. They’d named him Flick.
Flick had been found straying in a park local to my university. He had been picked up by one of the rescue officers and sat on her shoulder for the whole drive back to the centre. He was a sweet, six month old rat who looked so tiny in the big cage the rescue had provided him with. It was very clear that he was comfortable with people. I fell in love with Flick immediately.
I took Flick home with me that day. He sat in the carrier quite happily, as I drove the forty minutes back home.
Before I’d even met Flick, I’d already decided to call him Darwin. Originally I had planned to have scientist themed names for my mischief, but in the end I didn’t go with that. Nevertheless, Darwin seemed to suit the little rat, and so Flick became Darwin.
I began introductions cautiously. I started just by having Darwin live in the top half of the cage, and Scout and Bailey in the bottom. After a couple of days, I switched their towels (I use them for bedding), just to help get them used to eat other’s smells. After another day, I swapped them round – Darwin in the bottom, and Scout and Bailey in the top. They explored their new homes and showed no signs of aggression at the smells of each other, so I decided to try having them out to play together.
It became apparent very early on that Darwin, although socialised with humans, hadn’t been around other rats. He didn’t show any signs of aggression towards Scout and Bailey, but he didn’t acknowledge them either. Scout and Bailey, although nervous of him, were curious about Darwin and approached him several times. Darwin completely ignored them. He was more interested in interacting with me.
After a few attempts at this, Darwin did begin to acknowledge the presence of Scout and Bailey – but only because all three of them became fixated on jumping out of the enclosure they were in. Scout wasn’t as confident as the other two and found the jumping difficult. Bailey and Darwin, however, started working together. One would jump up to the top of the enclosure and when I went to stop them from jumping down, the other would jump up at the other side. A different rat jumped first each time.
Although, Darwin was now acknowledging (sort of) the other two, he wasn’t exactly interacting with them. So, I put a plate of mushed up banana in the enclosure with them. Bailey didn’t care about the banana; he just wanted to jump out of the enclosure.
Scout and Darwin both indulged in the banana though. At one point, Darwin picked up and was eating a piece of banana and Scout (who was absolutely tiny at this point) took the banana out of Darwin’s mouth. And Darwin let him!
Darwin did eventually come round and start interacting with Scout and Bailey. He started to show the behaviours that I expected him to – picking them up and turning them upside down. Never once was Darwin aggressive towards the other, much smaller, rats.
After nine days of introductions, I put them all together. They’ve happily been together ever since. Although there were no fights, Darwin clearly wasn’t comfortable living with the other two to begin with. I had placed lots of hammocks and other places they could sleep in the top half of their cage (I’d blocked off the bottom so they couldn’t be too far away from each other), but Darwin didn’t sleep in any of them. He’d just lie on the shelf all by himself, whilst Scout and Bailey snuggled together.
This continued for a few days. Darwin would only get up to speak to me and just ignored Scout and Bailey. I did at one point watch Scout approach Darwin and lie with him. I was so happy because Darwin looked so sad lying alone. I watched Scout get up onto a hanging shelf bed and lie on it. He’d get off of it and go to Darwin and then go back to it. He was trying to teach Darwin that he could sleep there. And it worked! Darwin ended up following Scout up onto the hanging shelf bed. The two of them slept there together for a while. It was so nice to see Darwin lying with another rat. After that, Darwin started sleeping in the hanging shelf bed. Slowly, he started joining the other two in the hammocks as well.
Another issue Darwin had was that he didn’t understand grooming. He knew how to groom himself but he didn’t seem to understand when Scout and Bailey tried to groom him. He wouldn’t let them near him if they tried to groom him. Overtime Scout and Bailey were able to start grooming Darwin. Eventually, Darwin even started to groom them back. Unfortunately, Darwin didn’t (and still doesn’t) quite know his own strength. He knocks Scout and Bailey onto their back and grooms their bellies, probably a little bit harder than is necessary. But they let him, and it’s a huge improvement from him not even acknowledging them.
I started doing little adventures for Scout, Bailey and Darwin when we went into a national lockdown last year. I started it for two reasons: firstly, I wanted to get Bailey (who was very skittish and scared of anything new) used to lots of different things, and secondly, I needed a way to keep busy during the lockdown.
They were just little adventures to start off with, but it was a lot of fun and I may have gotten (a little) carried away. I enjoy making things so I was having just as much fun as the rats were. I decided that Darwin should go on an adventure like the one the scientist he was named after did, so Scout, Bailey and Darwin visited Galratagos Island. Next, they went to Legume Island, and from there, they visited Foodie Island. They’ve since had many adventures, including Science School and a tour of the world that is still ongoing. You can keep up with these adventures on the website, or on the social media pages.
Darwin has also been on several real life adventures. From his first (that I know of) adventure in a park and coming home with me. In October last year, I noticed Darwin had a lump on his underside. I took him to the vet and we decided to operate to remove it. This was not an easy decision given the risks of putting a rat under anaesthesia. However, I decided it was his best chance – my options were either operate on it early or wait until it grew or burst to operate. Whilst, I was making this decision, Darwin visited the vets multiple times. He loved going. He had to sit in his carrier whilst I was driving. Then, whilst we were waiting in the car for our time (because of Covid19, we could only go in at our appointment time), Darwin got to go exploring in the car. Sometimes, after an appointment, we’d go and get some fast food and sit and eat it in the car together. He loved doing that too. He’d sit on my shoulder and eat a chip that I gave him.
Darwin successfully made it through the operation that took place on the 30th October. He was doing well afterwards so I was able to take him home that afternoon. He was very sleepy when he came home. I had to have him separated from his brothers whilst he was recovering. After the first twenty-four hours, Darwin became brighter again, but he was still very lethargic. After another day, he was back to his usual self. He wanted to come out and play with me. His part of the cage was very bare; I couldn’t have anything that could potentially open up his stitches in there, so he only had his food bowl, a bed, some towels and a toy. He didn’t have to wear a sock to protect his stitches (which were internal) as long as he didn’t pick at his wound. Darwin was a good boy though, and never touched his wound. He had lots of medicine to take and he took it all like a champ (that’s the power of peanut butter!)
He spent his days lying in the cage looking lonely. I took him out with me whenever I was home, so he didn’t have to be by himself. It was clear he wanted to be with Scout and Bailey though. Although sad, this was really nice to see because of how indifferent he was to begin with. He couldn’t be allowed to go in with them in case they picked at his stitches, but I did hold them up to the bars of his cage so they could see each other.
Eventually, Darwin was allowed to go back in with his brothers. He was so happy to get back in with his brothers, and before long, it was like he’d never been away from them.
Not long after this, we moved house. This was a real life adventure that Scout and Bailey got to join in on too. Once we were all packed up and had handed over the keys to our house, we had to sit in the car until we could pick up our new keys. We sat in a car park and had some lunch. During this time, I opened the carrier and let the boys come out to explore. Darwin shot out immediately (he knew the drill by this point!) Scout and Bailey were not as keen, but they did eventually come out too.
In early December, Darwin finally got signed off by the vet as officially okay. To celebrate, we got some fast food on our way home.
Darwin has been with me for a year now, and he’s already been on so many adventures. He’s my little travelling rat.
