So, I seem to have doubled the rat population of my room. Rowan and Asha's breeder was ratsitting and one of their sisters had babies, and I couldn't resist their little ratty nieces. I thought a small group would be more stable - if one of the rats wants to sleep or be on her own, it means the other rat can play with the others rather than also having to be alone. It offers them more choice of companion, and I'm generally a fan of allowing social animals to live in groups (my ability to take care of all members of the groups and their personalities permitting). The most stable dog group we had was a small pack of three, and it was great to see how they interacted and how gloriously happy they were.

So they were introduced while I was away (with barely a squeak) and now there's a little black top-ear and a little chocolate dumbo in the cage. They are proving to be hilarious: there's a pipe in the cage that's a little narrower than the adults are quite comfortable with and the babies were curled up in that. Rowan decided she also wanted to be in the pipe. Rowan ended up with her head and shoulders in the pipe and her back end sticking out. I took photos.

The babies are very licky and cute and I'm looking forward to seeing their personalities emerge. Asha and Rowan are known as Thinker and Stinker respectively after Rowan decided to investigate the toilet bowl, so it will be interesting to see how the new babies turn out.

In unrelated news: gosh, the most recent codepush is a bit good. Expandable nested cut tags, eeee.