The babes turn four weeks old tomorrow! Which means it's time for me to start seriously weaning them. Us girls need to be kept seperate from the boys before they are five weeks old, or there will be a chance of another pregnancy. The babes get to stay with Mom until they're six weeks old to finish properly socializing.

Tomorrow Mom is going to go pet shop hunting. By rights, because PetCo didn't keep me seperate from the males - and that's how I ended up pregnant - PetCo should take my babies, since Mom wasn't buying 10 rats that day, only one (as a companion-rat to Ash).

But, after everything I have taught Mom, and everything she's learned on the internet and from the Rat List (and the fact that PetCo didn't care enough to even keep me seperate from the males) Mom says that there is a snowball's chance in a-very-hot-place that my beautiful, socialized, sweet and loving babes will EVER end up there.

Being that I had eight boys and one girl, Mom has seven boys to place in homes. And she has two weeks to do it. She's going pet shop hunting tomorrow just in case she can't find homes for them. The ideal pet shop would never under any circumstances sell a sweet adorable rat as food for a snake - or, at the very least, they would charge so much for them that any money-conscious snake-owner would visit establishments that sell "feeder" rats for much less. Which are exactly the places that Mom intends to avoid.

Another criteria is that my babes are used to social interaction with humans for quite a bit of time every day. Mom doesn't want to drop off my beautiful, sweet babes just to have them ignored and thereby forget how fun interaction with humans can be. They have been handled, kissed, tickled, and spoiled rotten every single day of their lives since they were born. This simply must continue!

Mom wants to keep my only girl, and is also considering keeping one of the boys and getting him neutered. She would actually like a male around the house, but he would have to be neutered, as all the rest of us rats are girls (however, right now us girls are simply outnumbered!)

Mom wants me off of her computer so that she can check her Email one more time and go to bed. She has to get up early to go Pet Shop hunting in the morning! I'll be back on Monday.

I don't know about you, but I'm going to miss these faces...

...and pictures like this.

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