After the hoarding situation, someone emailed me asking if there was any way to help. The hoarded rats had all found their way into new homes by this time, and there were no other rats looking for homes just then, so I offered to save the person's email address and let her know if a situation came up.
Awhile later, I found an ad on Craigslist for someone who had bred too many rats for their snake. The breeder was desperate to get rid of them, as they were too big to feed the snake. In the ad, they were reported as having been three females, around 8 weeks old. I excitedly sent off an email to the enthusiastic adopter, she confirmed that she'd love to take them in if I could pick them up and foster them until she was able to come into town (she lives a town away, in Deming). I agreed, and set off on a trip to the thriving metropolis of Canutillo to pick up a few rats.
Well, as it works out, "three female 8 week old rats" turned out to be more like "five rats, two girls and three boys, that are barely 5 weeks old if they're a day." The owners just sort of handed me a shoebox full of rats and took off.
My adopter took in the girls, but was unable to take the boys, so I unwittingly added them to my house. That was pushing my rat limits to the max, but it worked out. The best part is that the adopter, Callie, turned out to be a pretty awesome person and we've remained friends since. She maintains a pretty awesome blog, herself, which you should check out.
Anyway. The boys I kept were a dumbo black berkshire (Amadeus), a top-eared black berkshire (Socrates), and a white fellow with a very, very pale hood; the jury's still out if the hood is pale champagne, dove, or some other color. My boyfriend named him Normoth, after one of his favorite World of Warcraft characters. They all still live with me, and have grown to be big, handsome man-rats.
Their sisters, Beatrix (an agouti russian blue) and Eiko (a black berkshire), live with Callie.
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