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After my beloved Shelley's death, I decided to give a good home to two ratties from the local humane society. Pixie and Skadi had landed in the local animal shelter together with their brothers and sisters as well as their mom. Somebody had bought their mom from a pet shop and - of course - the mom had already been pregnant. Well, obviously the person felt not up to coping with so many rats and delivered them all to the shelter.

The brothers of Pixie and Skadi had been freshly castrated when we arrived at the shelter, so we decided on two females, altho the risk of tumors is higher in females than in males. We chose Pixie, the beige-white hooded one, because she looked totally different from Shelley and since all her sisters except Skadi were also beige-white hooded, we chose Skadi, the chocolate-brown with the white streak on her belly and white feet in order to better tell them apart. At the time, they were about 4 months old, without having had much contact with humans.

Pixie being curious!

Skadi wrestling with a corn cob!

They were not tame and they are still not very tame to this date (September 1998). But they are not aggressive and seem to like their new home a lot. We even built them a huge cage, when we saw that Shelley's cage was too small for them. Shelley was a semi-freerange rat, meaning, she only spent the nights in the cage. With Pixie and Skadi, we could not decide on free range, since we have just moved into a new apartment and don't want it destroyed. So, off we went to IKEA and bought a white closet with two doors and one shelf.

After a very tough morning at the do-it-yourself center, my SO and my brother had magically produced a super Rattie Castle with four stories. The following items were put in the castle:

On top of the cage is Shelley's wrestling mate, Mr. Marmot!

Aren't my darlings lucky to own this castle?