The Smailus Ratties'and Mousies Home Page
The Castle
This is the latest version (version 2 actualy) of the rat-palace. It contains
a home-made ceramic castle in which the little butts sleep and has been
enlarged by adding 12 inches of space on top of what was before and thus the
new 'tile level', corner hammock and upper tube and finally roof-tile-level are
new. But then I've gone from 1 stinker, Pez, to 3 little butts, and so they
need to have more room.
Its a 7-story cage, if you count each possible level. It started out as a
split-level that was about a foot shorter when I first got Pez. It has two
plastic trays which hold the bedding and the food-dish and ceramic castle in
the near back corner (that white-grey block). The inside edges of the plastic
trays have wood bolted to them so the butts chew on the wood and not the
plastic. This was an evolution from Pez chewing through some parts of the
drawer edges - though no chance of escape. The only way out is to chew through
the wire or the front (visible) section of of the drawers - or through the tray
bottoms and then through the wooden cabinet the cage sits on. The entire
thing, cabinet and cage is entirely home made. Only the plastic drawers are
store purchased - and I didn't make the porcelin tiles nore the nest.
Bottom level is a large drawer with just aspen shavings - a short ladder leads
up into a tube mounted front-to-back at the back end (not visible) and there is
an opening cut along the side at the front end (visible) which leads up the
level 2 - where the water bottles are. From there there is a ladder along the
back (visible) which leads up the the upper tray. This tray holds the food
dish, salt wheel, and castle. From there there is a hammock net and walkway
leading from front-to-back and those two plus the castle provide access to the
large tube mounted side-to-side on the back wall - just visible below the
middle-tile level. The middle tile level has a plastic bird ladder leading up
into the top tube which has holes drilled in the front for windows. On the
right end of the tube is a corner hammock. The top of the tube has a door cut
out which opens into the space between the two uppermost ceramic tiles (which
are secured by wire and rest on the frame.
The entire frame is of copper tubing with a small-opening wire mesh
fence covering it. The door frames and sliding rails as well as the trim along
the upper rim (to fill a gap) is all aluminum. Everything is from a local home-super-store.
You can take a cage virtual tour showing the details up close (Fall 2000)
While the internal layout of the cage has changed, the basic structure remains the same.
The Butts
|
| Who is it?
| Description
| Acquired (approx bday or weight)
|
| Nicholas
| My wifes 1st rat.
| ( ? - ?)
|
| Muschka
| My wifes 2nd and most loved rat.
| ( ? - ? )
|
| Pez
| My first rat - a white and gray hooded female.
| (8/22/1997 - 7/19/2000)
|
| Soap
| A white and grey varigated
| (8/5/2000 (100gr) - 6/24/2003)
|
| Dart
| A chocolate berkshire
| (8/5/2000 (70gr) - 8/29/2002)
|
| Curley-Que
| A beige rex
| (8/5/2000 (60gr) - 8/15/2002)
|
| PJ
| A white and black mouse
| (3/6/2002 (16gr) - )
|
| Squirt
| A light brown mouse.
| (3/9/2002 (10gr) - 5/24/2002 )
|
They Grow Up
While Curley-Que was clearly the smallest when the threesome was new, she quickly became the biggest and
poor Soap, once king of the hill, has been relegated to the smallest of the three. And then the mice
joined the mix.
| Weights over time |
| Soap | Dart | Curley-Que | PJ | Squirt |
| Aug 5, 2000 | 100g | 70g | 60g | |
| Jan 18, 2002 | 274g | 380g | 424g | |
| Feb 16, 2002 | 282g | 376g | 352g | |
| Mar 9, 2002 | | | | 16g | 10g |
| May 4, 2002 | 292g | 378g | 420g | 28g | 16g |
Visitors since August 14th, 2000
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