It was a long long day of waiting. We didn’t want to go up and look at rats until Andrew got out of school, so he could come look with us. I was so excited all day, moving stuff around in the cage, making sure everything was perfect. Then he finally got home and we headed up north to 5280 Reptile Room.
Yes, it seemed a little strange to me too, that we’re going to look at rats in a reptile shop. Who breeds rats in a reptile shop? I’m thinking, we’re probably looking at feeders up here, and probably not taking any of them home.
We get up there and head in, and we look around for a few minutes, and I see not a single rat. So we walk up to the counter and said to the lady, “I was told you breed dumbos?” Turns out, yes they do. They keep them in the back away from all the predators. That’s a smart idea.
She asks me if I’m looking for males or females. “Males” I tell her. I’ve read they’re much calmer and more cuddly. She disappears to the back. A few minutes later she comes back out with a box full of tiny little cute balls of adorableness, and I melted into a puddle.
The first baby I picked up is a variegated hooded in gray. He immediately crawls up onto my shoulder, then down into my sweater and rests comfortable in my sleeve. Well, I’m taking that one home. The rest in the box seem wholly uninterested in me, Mike, and Andrew.
I explain to her we’re looking for three, and ask if she has anymore males. She says there’s some more a week or two older, if I don’t mind them a little bigger. So she disappears into the back again and brings out another box. In this box there are three babies with varying degrees of coloring. One is nearly all tan, one has nothing more than a gray splotchy cap, and the third has a little tan spot over his eye. He’s also missing an ear. Well, how do I turn down a dumbo with only one ear? So obviously he’s coming home too.
At this point, it comes down to picking the third baby. And seriously, how am I supposed to pick between these two? How do I send one back? They’re all sweet as pie, and cute as a button, and none of them seem to really be terribly disinterested in any of us. So we decided to take all four of them home. And now we have a whole entire mischief of babies!
We’re letting them adjust to their new home while we figure out what they should be named. I’ll post some profiles about each of them soon!
Raising Mischief 