Although it wouldn't seem to be true, Mom says cleaning my cage is a snap! The wire part simply lifts out of the bin. Mom usually puts it on a piece of newspaper on the couch, and that's where the babes and I wait until Mom cleans our bin. She takes it into the bathroom. I've never seen what she does in there, but it always comes back nice and clean, and smelling very faintly of mild soap. Then she gets out her bag in which she keeps a mixture of shredded black & white newspaper and brown paper bags, and fills our pen with that (Mom was going broke trying to keep all us rats on CareFRESH, so Daddy bought her a shredder, and Mom now makes our own bedding).

In order to get better pictures, Mom took our cage out of our bin. That confused the babes, though, so she put it back in - especially after they started going over the sides!

Mom needn't worry, Daddy takes really good pictures.

The babes aren't that willing to come out of their cage unless another babe is already trying it, or there's a human there. When there's a human hand there, they all come up and scramble to see who can be the first one on!

Sometimes when I want out and there's a wall of babes blocking the door, I pull them back and out of my way one by one.

The babes are very agile now, and much more confident in their footing. They climb virtually everywhere now. This little guy above is taking a short-cut to the top shelf, even though Mom fixed our ladder so it's easier for us to use!

Mom has been getting the babes out in groups, since it's become impossible for her to watch all nine of them, even on something semi-contained like a couch! She will get three out according to color and take turns with the 3 color groups, or she will have her human son hold three, while Daddy and her each hold another three.

Mom told me that pretty soon, she's going to have to seperate us from the boys. To be honest, I'm looking forward to a quieter cage!

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