06/02/2023
Many of my baby ratties turned 6 weeks old today. 🎂🎉 According to a bunch of reputable agencies, these baby ratties are generally ready, today, to be released as loving pets. 🐀🐀🐀🐾🐾🐾❤️
Some third-party groups won't post for available rats under 8 weeks old, so there might be a bit of confusion. They might do this for a few reasons: (1) A few breeders might release their rats too early in cases when a rat needs to be held back or is even unadoptable. Also, a new rat family may not realize how delicate a baby rat’s system can be, which might then lead to over-medicating and so on. (2) Young baby ratties, even 5-6 weeks old and socialized, can be slightly nippy at times, because they're looking to every warm gentle hand as a "mama," and they are hungry (lol 🥰). Some people might then think that they "don't have a good pet" - when in fact they do! They have a tiny rat who loves being by them. (3) Some breeders may not confident of when their rats are ready, possibly also not realizing ‘why’ some entities will tell them 8 weeks while others say 6 weeks, so they want to feel sure that their rats are ready to go. (4) Social and physical development, to include overall health, benefit from a little more time with baby ratties’ siblings and mama rat. (5) Small numbers of very carefully breed litters may lead their to breeders taking longer in choosing holdbacks, which also means releasing those special ones we *almost* held back. 💔❤️
For some of these reasons, I also hold males until about 8 weeks old and females a bit longer. Some ratties are even held beyond these ages for various reasons, including that we here want to keep loving them. They are all our dear pets, so some will be our ‘holdbacks’ or be adopted to people who can give the best homes to our amazing babies.
Given experiences with new rattie owners and requests for homing, I want you to have a fun experience in getting your new babies! So, after taking advanced graduate courses in physiology, psychology, and development, I also read from reputable agencies on rat care (e.g., see included screenshots). Each lovely baby, when hitting their developmental milestones and finding a loving home, is ready. 🐀🐀🐾🐾💗💕💞
Feel free to reach out to me if you see any ratties here that catch your eye, and let me know what you have in mind. Some people already have, completely welcomed to do so… The pet fancy rats in this post’s picture are spoken for, but there’s others here to love too! 🐀🐀🐀🐾🐾🐾🥰