Well, I did it. I came home with a beautiful agouti buck today :) BTW, "Buck" is a male rat. He's very sweet and is named after my gerbil patriarch, Zippy. His name is Zipper and he looves to ride around the house on my shoulder. My mother strictly told me we were *not* getting the rat today, because she didn't have the money. Well, of course I fell in love with him and begged her to ask the man to reserve him for me. He kindly said that we could take Zip and pay back later. We used to go there a lot so he knows we won't bail on him ;) Anyway, I think I'll really like rats as a breeding stock. They're so active and friendly, they remind me of miniature guinea pigs :) I'm going to pick up another buck to live with Zip soon, then get 2 does (females) and breed once I have the time. Apparently, you can use male bucks as 'studs' to impregnate the doe when she's in heat, and she can have up to 8-18 babies! *wow* hehe I'm not sure I'm ready for that. I think the record is 22. But I'm glad you can use them as studs, because 8-18 babies every 3-4 weeks would be way too much for me. But since Bushy-Tailed jirds supposedly breed much like the Mongolian gerbil and tend to not have such large litters, I'm hoping to keep a nice selection of rats and jirds at most times. Jirds seem ever so popular now and this would be a good learning experience for me! Anyway, this got pretty big, so I'll end it here. Paige
