Hi all,
 
I've come down from my lurking perch again to share some info with
everyone....
 
Firstly, I'd like to thanke Andi and Todd Lockhart for helping me expand my
fuzzy family!!!  I adopted two new fuzzies, a young boy and a young girl,
both who are currently nameless....They are wonderful and full of energy
and, the usual dominance play aside seem to be getting along OK with Loki
and Cricket.
 
Yesterday was a mixed day, because in addition to getting the new fuzzies I
had to put down the last of my original rat pack at the vet.  Anais was 2.5
years old and was incredibly sweet...I'll miss her a lot.....
 
This leads me to my next topic, though...ras and ferrets....I have found in
my experience that rats and ferrets getting along has to do totally with the
rats and ferrets involved.  In December '93 I had Loki and Cricket and got
Momma, a pretty little rat.  Momma and Loki got along really well and curled
up together (always under supervision) and enjoyed each other's company.
Cricket really wanted nothing to do with Momma.  Momma had he litter of 11
babies and for some reason all of the babies were totally scared to death of
the ferrets, even though they had never had any bad expereinces with them.
 
Now with the latest 3 rats I have, two of them don't pay much mind to the
ferrets ad don't interact with them much, the third, Illyana likes to chase
Loki and Criket around the apartment.  Loki and Cricket are totally afraid
of Illyana and she is not even close to being a big rat.  End result was
that I could have the ferrets and rats out running around at the same time
and not worry about the ferrets bothering the rats at all.  They would get
within a foot of any of the rats and then turn and run.
 
Now, though, I have some unknowns in my house and I cannot just let
everybody out at the same time anymore.  I need to see how my newbies
respond to the rats...
 
Well, I guess that is enough for now.....:)
 
Take Care all!!
 
Butch
Loki (the sable terror), Cricket (the cute one of the family, with her
title now in contention), The nameless pair and the Rat Pack (Belle,
Illyana and Tatiana)
[Posted in FML issue 1608]