First of all, I love rats!
Rat are very smart nobody can argue that. And they are very cute too once you take away the negative stigma that has been attached to them.
On Maui we have the most adorable rats. They are fast and agile fluffy little ninjas.
That being said – they are only adorable one at a time once in awhile. If you don’t keep your garden and house surrounding clean you may attract a few too many, which is not adorable.
They have these big black eyes and soft brindle fur and of course the long rat tail that takes some getting used to.
My friend Ona found 5 very young baby rats in her compost pile. Momma was no where to be found. Ona left the babies in the compost pile and went back a few times to see If mom came back. No sign of mom… So Ona played mommy to these 5 baby rats. They were so young that they looked more like little wet slugs. Ona fed them soy milk with a tiny dropper every two hours at first. Then a little time went on and feeding happened every 4 hours.
With 5 babies a feeding took about an hour so Ona was a very busy mom. I baby sat when Ona had to work and she had them when I was working. In a short time we lost 3 of the rats but 2 were still going strong. I named them Nicklaus and Freya. Ona went away on vacation for about a month and while she was gone Freya and Nicklaus stayed with me. During the day I carried them with me in a little critter sized papoose close to my heart. At night I kept a plastic bottle filled with warm water next to them in their cage and changed the water a couple times during the night. Sadly, Freya eventually died. But we still had Nicklaus.
As Nicklaus got older and more handsome he loved to be held and he loved to go for walks. He would ride along on my shoulder. When a cat would show up Nick quickly hid himself in my shirt. We would work in the garden and he just held on to my shirt or my skin ouch. If he ever wanted to be a wild rat the opportunity was there every day. He was a free rat if he wanted it. I don’t believe in keeping an animal in a cage. He had a cage inside the house that he slept in and his food was there. Ultimately, I wanted to release him to the wild but only when he was ready.
Nicklaus soon was coming into puberty but still did not want to leave. He would find his way onto the floor inside the house and then we would play a little game of his called “catch me if you can.” Eventually several hours later I caught him… This happened twice… It was time to go. Ona came back to the island and she and I said our goodbyes to Nicklaus tearfully at the compost pile behind my house. He ran in and out of the pile several times before finally disappearing for good!
Suprise!
Two nights later at 3am I woke to crash in my kitchen. I don’t know how it happened but Nicklaus found his way back in to my house. He did not want to be totally wild, he liked our food. He was not pleased with being housed in a cage when inside our home. But this was not negotiable. By 4am he was captured and put in the dreaded cage. 🙁 I tried for another couple of days to convince him to live outside or to be a pet and live by the rules of the house that states rats do not run free to poop and pee and nimble wherever they choose in this home.
Ultimately, we went for a family walk together, me my honey Thomas, and Nicklaus. we put Nicklaus on a tree full of cherries in a safe part of the neighborhood where there were dogs and no cats. We said our goodbyes.
Nicklaus lived happily ever after.
Wanna watch a cute movie – get Ratatouille from Pixar. Link below.