Mishka's babies

On Monday, March 7, around 11:00 a.m. Mama Mishka started to deliver her babies. I happened to be home and I noticed there was a unfamiliar sound coming from the rat cage. It sounded like very little squeaking. So I hurried over to the cage and sure enough, I could see (barely) a couple of squirming little pink baby rats! I tried to take some pictures of the whole process, but it was very hard to see into her nest. Plus, I didn't want to disturb or stress her out by trying to capture the moment. I waited until Ben came home in the evening for us to check how many babies she had. Mishka wasn't too happy about being taken away from her babies, but we needed to make sure they were all alive and well. When we took them out two of them still had their umbilical cords attached, so Ben carefully clipped the rest of the cords off (usually the mother eats each cord off after delivery). If we hadn't discovered this early enough, it is possible one of the babies could have been strangled by the cord, so we were thankful everyone was okay. Mishka had 12 babies in all! Here are some of their first pictures.

Miskha on her nest a couple hours after delivering (you can see a couple of the pink babies).

Here you can see the babies a little better.

Taking out the pups for the first time, and trying to count them.

All 12 of them lined up! They are so little in the picture! Each was a little over an inch long.