Right Paw Rattery

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Right Paw Rattery Not currently breeding for the public, but still here for support and education. Not actively breeding for the public, but still here for educational resources.

Peeks and Sprinn are both approaching 2 now, still healthy, happy and being the best role models for their great grandch...
22/04/2025

Peeks and Sprinn are both approaching 2 now, still healthy, happy and being the best role models for their great grandchildren. I'd had a disheartening time working with an outcrossed line from a beloved rat kindly studded from a good breeder which was still resulting in skittish "I'm okay but I'm not that into handling" rats and a few health issues after a few generations, and I think the road trip really contributed to nervousness for some of them in a way that was worth a try but in hindsight isn't worth the risk.
Passing the torch of that line to someone who wanted it, letting it go and just going back to my main line and getting immediately bombarded with licky, eager bubs is just what my heart needed as I step back from letting my rats be available to the public and just enjoy them.

It's beautiful to see the original main line oldies going strong, I'm really having a delightful time with the bubs, and I'm quietly pleased to see the nice Irish markings of their great, great grandma popping up in some of them, it's always been a favourite of mine. ❤️

Sprinn is the big agouti hooded fellow in with the baby boys, and Peeks is the rusted old black berk girl, a champion nester and a rat who truly seeks out teaching and caring for babies. I let her sniff my hand after holding them when they were just pinkies, and she started trying to put my hand in the hide and groom it, and when that wasn't satisfying enough she stuffed and dragged young adult Syd into a hide. Syd was confused but complied and was dragged back in whenever she wandered out for the next 15 minutes and eventually just relented while Peeks groomed her. You'd think a mumma with such strong instincts might have trended towards the overly hormonal maternal aggression side, but Peeks had two litters back in her day and was brilliant both times. She's just a great mum.

I know I've closed to the public, but I had one last litter on the way already, and it arrived on Wednesday. Uhura did s...
14/03/2025

I know I've closed to the public, but I had one last litter on the way already, and it arrived on Wednesday.
Uhura did so beautifully, she's such a brilliant, healthy, calm mumma. She made eight of the plumpest little sausages I've met, they're so gorgeous. I've raised so, so many litters over the years. Mostly rescue litters, where I knew the less bubs I got attached to and kept, the more rats I could help in the long run. Then the Rattery, where I was constantly thinking and comparing and taking notes and stressing about the tiniest details trying to do my absolute best, and I couldn't coddle them so much I'd make it hard to gauge their genetic temperament.
But these babies are just mine to cherish and snuggle and spoil as I please, and that's pretty dang exciting.

Found the perfect comic for Snowball, who's known for being deaf, really really stupid, and eating his own hair.He's a r...
07/03/2025

Found the perfect comic for Snowball, who's known for being deaf, really really stupid, and eating his own hair.
He's a rescue. If you have white rats of any colour eyes, even those with spots which are sometimes mistakenly called "Dalmatian" in Australia, try testing their hearing. Most aren't albino, they just have two copies of the variegated gene, and many are born deaf. It's rarely picked up on because their whiskers can pick up vibrations and their smell and sight compensates fine. But if you've got a very deep sleeper, especially one who might be a bit aloof or "difficult" to get along with other rats, consider investigating.

If you breed variegated or mismarked bews etc, be honest with yourself about whether you really believe that intentionally creating deaf animals for aesthetic is ethical, or if it's something you know in your heart to be unethical but you just want to do it anyway.
Nobody can stop you, but consider whether it's more important to you to actually treat animals well, or just to be perceived as someone who does.

02/03/2025

Important update: Until further notice, I won't have any rats available, I'll be going back to more of the educational and support stuff I love, and discontinuing breeding.

The Rattery and rats are progressing wonderfully and I'm really proud of them, but there have been a number of changes in my personal life that mean I will likely be staying on the south coast, where we moved as a result of the rental crisis last year. At the time we weren't sure how temporary that change would be, and it was quite viable to road trip up to home rats out to you all.

I'm far more passionate about rescue and education than breeding. The only reason I started the rattery was to help rats, to try and combat the decline in health and temperament I'd seen over the past decade, and lead by example that it's viable to be a breeder while focusing hard on health and temperament, not needing to go for the pretty, health impacted things that are profitable and fun, and to build a community based on transparency and realistic progress rather than relying on cultivating an image of perfection. We still need that, but I'm not in a position to be it at the moment.

Where I'm at in life right now, my passion is still pushing for a better life for rats and their owners.
But with the changes in my location and life, there's far more helpful things I could be doing towards that goal.

I'll still be around, come May the rescue team will be reconvening to decide what direction to go with the org, I have some ideas and there are proposals in the works but a couple of different directions it might go in - or if not at all, I have ideas for myself there too. I've got a few months to keep working on that yet.

In the meantime, everything agreed upon with existing owners still stands, I'm still here for support, I just won't be producing and homing more rats. It's a shame for sure, I'm really proud of the progress we've made, especially my main line. There should be one more litter already on the way, but I get to either just enjoy them all as pets without constantly running the math of assessing and recording and comparing to try to make pairing decisions, which will be great for me. The page will stay up and I'm sure I'll have helpful things to share here, I'll just make it clear I'm not a source of rats currently.

Thank you so much to the people who've come along with me on the Rattery journey, it's been great, and hopefully contributed some lasting ideas to the pet rat space. When I figure out exactly what the next iteration looks like for me, I'll be excited to share it with you all. In the meantime, you know where to find me.

So proud of Amy and her RPR and RSQ girls!(RSQ is the prefix granted by the club specifically to graduates of Rachie's R...
20/02/2025

So proud of Amy and her RPR and RSQ girls!

(RSQ is the prefix granted by the club specifically to graduates of Rachie's Ratirement Home and is cheekily pronounced "a rescue")

19/02/2025

Even though the rescue is taking a year break, welfare and animal ethics is still a passion and a huge part of my life. Today and tomorrow is the RSPCA Animal Welfare Seminar, a great lineup of experts across many fields hosted by the RSPCA.

Its easy and comfortable to live by our personal ethics as they have organically developed. Spend less than a minute on social media however, and its easy to see why that approach doesn't make for useful, well informed communities who act in line with evidence or often, their own core values.

Genuinely helping people and animals in a way that represents evidence based best practice and minimises personal bias often means being an active learner, far beyond the point where we start thinking we have 'enough expertise' in a subject to present ourselves as educated, let alone educators or advocates. I strongly recommend anyone who is interested in animal welfare and ethics, not just those who rescue but also breeders who hold the responsibility of producing animal lives, to jump into any chance to hear structured education from genuine experts. There's so much more to it than you'd ever know just by following your intuition, no matter how beautifully tuned that intuition might be.

I'm really looking forward to getting back into community support and applying the results of a year spent reflecting, researching and planning. Can't say much yet, but suffice to say I'm excited and hopeful.

Any other rescues, breeders or private rescuers tuning in to the seminars?

I use homemade acrylic cage cards and chalk markers to denote who's in which cage. Instead of writing the correct coat/c...
15/01/2025

I use homemade acrylic cage cards and chalk markers to denote who's in which cage. Instead of writing the correct coat/colour/marking for each rat, I describe them in terms everyone can understand so the whole family can get to know them too. Extra benefit, they can match the correct rat to anything they observe that might be helpful, like illness, fighting or odd behaviours.

Today I was updating the boys cage card with the help of an enthusiastic four year old. He said it was his name, and also a robot. I think I'll leave it like this for a bit.

Snowball loves this Emotional Support Coconut. When I lifted him slightly to check whether he was sleeping, or perhaps h...
14/01/2025

Snowball loves this Emotional Support Coconut. When I lifted him slightly to check whether he was sleeping, or perhaps had his head stuck, he gave me a few slow blinks and leaned further into his coconut for more upside down coconut naps.
(Snowball is a surrendered pet who's just retiring with me, he's a completely deaf old black eyed white rex velour lad.)

Rumours abound that there may be a litter on the way!RPR Uhura and RPR K'hekk, cementing some lovely temperament traits ...
08/01/2025

Rumours abound that there may be a litter on the way!
RPR Uhura and RPR K'hekk, cementing some lovely temperament traits from my choc line.

Oh to be a little Nuggie sleeping so sweetly.
06/01/2025

Oh to be a little Nuggie sleeping so sweetly.

Had a brilliant road trip to Brisbane, homed out the Korally litter, sent a few of my favourite boys to a couple of diff...
26/12/2024

Had a brilliant road trip to Brisbane, homed out the Korally litter, sent a few of my favourite boys to a couple of different upcoming rat breeder friends in Bris (The Good Egg Mousery and Smelly Rats), picked up a couple of promising sweeties from a couple of breeders in Sydney (Thank you OzRats and Lucy Lou Rodentry!). Plus a few extras, we picked a couple of older RPR boys who weren’t a good fit for the beautiful new human addition to their family, and one of my new fellows from Sydney came with a bonded brother and an elderly fellow who’s come along to retire with me, wouldn’t want to break up a family.

Now to settle back in, plan out my next litters and see what’s possible next year! Hopefully get a chance to visit Brisbane friends again, and I’d love to catch a NSW show for the first time in many years and meet the new faces there, and hopefully make it down to visit some Victorian rat friends and the club as well! Will definitely continue working on my lines at my usual small scale, and depending on the outcome of the Rachie’s Ratirement Home meeting in May after the break, we’ll be able to make plans for both what RRH is doing in the future, and what we are! I’ve got exciting ideas for both, but until then we’ll be resting, enjoying pottering around living quietly, sorting out some health stuff, and fixing up my family home.

Longform update with the specifics of each rat is up live in the Owner’s Group, so people can connect and chat about their rats siblings and relatives. Pictured is a new boy, Lucy Lou Nugget, who I was given by the lovely Sandra.

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