When Harry Met Sally...

It was the summer of 2008 when my boyfriend, Matt, got a pet rat named Sally. She was somewhat lonely at times, and after some thought, he decided we would buy another rat and breed a litter for his 10 year old snake, Malachi. The drive was long, and after our trip to the rat lady, we released the newly named Harry to do his deed. When Harry met Sally, the sparks must have flown because within a few weeks, Sally had made a nest of newspapers and bedding, and one night gave birth to 13 little pinkies.

To watch them grow hair and open their eyes as they stumbled around the cage was so cute. At about 5 weeks old we separated the boys from the girls, but only a few weeks later discovered one of the boys got a hold of Sally and she gave birth to another litter of 12 more baby rats. Now we were in a little bit deeper, but we made sure to separate this litter ahead of time. We ended up with total of 26 at one time.

They became very talented escape artists from early on. There were countless times that they figured out how to squeeze through the tiniest slither or pile on top of each other until one could reach the top of whatever they were in, just enough to grab hold and pull themselves up. One morning we awakened to find some of the girls inside the house with the guinea pig and surprisingly we always managed to catch them all again.

By the time they were all full grown Ratties, we had already named a few of them. Big Ben was the largest of the boys. Stuart had a tan stripe down his back and he always was first to the cage to be pet. In with the girls were Amilia and Camilla(tan and white),Georgetta, and Sally. As time went on, it became more and more difficult to drop them into that death box. Our little rat army was all I talked about for months. It was so new to me and I learned how smart and personable they really are.

In January, we moved to Lexington and they were left in the care of Matt's mother. Soon after we had left, a terrible ice storm passed through western Kentucky and left hundreds of people from our hometown without power for weeks. There were no grocery stores open, no way to communicate to one another and no way to keep poor Malachi warm. His cold blooded body couldn't withstand such extreme temperatures. Just days after his death, Matt's mom knew there would be no way to continue feeding 20 rats in such a rough time, so she gave them to a friend who owned a large hungry Boa. O what I would do to be able to pet Sally's head one more time.