Rats!

"Quinn! We're grandparents!!"

This exultant cry from my former roommate woke me from a much-needed afternoon nap. As may be expected, I was a little confused.

Lizzie has had a bit of furry contraband for the last few months. At some point, she concluded that one simply wasn't enough, and got another to share the tank. Somehow, the gender of the second one was overlooked.

I will say this. Rodents tend to be rather, as they say, hung. How on earth you pick up an adult male and not observe this is beyond me. The first one was female. She meant for the second to be female. It's a mystery to me.

Lizzie became rather attached to the second one, and didn't want to take him back, and rationalized that they'd just play together - he was a lot younger than the girl, so he probably wasn't going to be able to reproduce, right? I tried pointing out to her that rats (actually, to my knowledge, most mammals) become sexually mature a lot younger as males than females.

But, after about two days, Lizzie realized this, and stuffed the randy furball into another box so that her girl-rat could get some rest, with plans to take him back to the pet store and get a girl this time. A few days later, we had a sweet, quiet little grey girl who seemed to get along splendidly with the original female.

Today, one of them gave birth.

Unexpectedly, it's the new girl - apparently she was pregnant when Lizzie bought her. At present, there are ten pups. Since they don't have fur, Lizzie has deemed them "hideous", but they're kinda cute and squeaky to watch. (Mind, I have a long history with small animals and biology in general - my definition of 'cute' may not necessarily match anyone else's.)

She's planning to try to keep them, which should be an adventure.