On the 27th of November 2007, we got:
Mystic Rats Lionheart, a silver mink Berkshire rat, AKA Leo

Leo and Noogie in their bottle sleeve tunnel, (1.5 litre pop bottle opened both ends, with a sleeve of material attached), and them both in the sleeve part of the tunnel, after they've burst out of it.

As you most likely know, Branded passed away from a bad lung infection leaving nugget on his own, poor nugget had never been alone before, (we got him from his litter mates, and he lived with branden till the day he went) so the poor little rattie was pining badly, he stopped putting on weight, and would sit in branden's old hammock for ages looking very very sad.

So we decided it was for the best to get another rattie friend for him sooner rather than later, this time I was staying clear of pet shops, so we looked for a proper rat breeder, we had a little problem with us still being in Germany, but luckily most German people can speak English (usually better than most English school leavers :) so we found the ratteries near to where we were at the time, and e-mailed them to see if they had any 8 week old ratties looking for a home.

We found the mystic rats rattery, run by a lovely lass called Sabrina Bergmann, this rattery was in Marburg, about 90 kms north of Frankfurt, and her website showed she had a couple of 8 week old ratties still available, we fell in love with one called Lionheart, he was born on the 24th of September 2007, making him 2 days older than Nugget, so we e-mailed her to see if we could be considered to give him a forever home with us and Nugget.

Waiting for the return e-mail was nerve wracking, we'd been warned we may not be accepted by any ratteries due to us travelling about, but we were going back to England in 2 and a half weeks time, so figured it shouldn't be a problem, and luckily it wasn't, we were asked to pop round to see Sabrina and her rats, and to bring nugget with us so we could see if lionheart would get on with him, so on the 27th of November we went upto Marburg and saw Sabrina about lionheart.

Sabrina was brilliant, she really loved her rats (and her cats who seemed to love the rats too.. and not as snacks either :) she had nice big cages for them, and all the youngsters seemed to know their names, they loved attention, she opened the young boys cage and called lionheart, and he came to the door along with about 7 other rats who wanted to come out and play on the strangers, he was bigger than nugget, bulky and muscley, you could tell he's had the best possible start in his life.

We introduced nugget to lionheart, and they seemed to get on really well, we saw Solaris, lionhearts mother, who was a really good size for a doe, then we got to see the father (I didn't catch his name) we were amazed, he was a lovely big squishy, the size of a kitten, he wouldn't be a shoulder rat, more of a round the neck scarf rat :)

Noogie and Leo were getting on fine, so it was agreed we could adopt him, we filled out the forms, agreeing to the terms of adopting one of her rats, which were: not to re-home him to anyone else but her, never every to sell/give him to a pet shop, to keep her updated on his progress and so on, we also got a form to fill in with any vetinary treatment he gets, and when he dies to sent it back to her so she can keep records of how her breeding program is going (rat breeders work to make better rats with each litter, mainly long lived illness free ratties that are friendly, people just mating any old rats to get rittens to sell on are not breeders, they are no better than the pet shop suppliers)

And then we took Lionheart down to see where he'd be living for the next 2 and a half weeks, the cage in our van is small for adult rats, but luckily noogie and Leo are still relatively small, it's size is just enough for one rat, and of course they have the rat runs around the van always open to them when were parked up, when we go home we're getting a massive cage for the boys ( a furet XL, big enough for 9 rats, but it'll have no more than 4 in it) the TV in our bedroom is going to make room for it, that's how much we love these amazing animals.

Sabrina said goodbye to lionheart, she looked close to tears, that's how much she loves her ratties, and we made our way to a stellplatz for the night.

The first night there were a few power struggles, Leo was the alpha rat in his cage, now it's all changed they have to work out a new leadership, but it was nothing serious, just a little hissing and tail wagging from Leo, and noogie trying to crawl under him all the time, but they soon got fed up of the leadership campaign, and got down to some good rattie play time.

Toffee likes lionheart, he's not bothered about her, just like branden was with her, he wants to see her, but she shy's away, then when she wants to play, he's lost interest, the boys slept together in Noogie's bed, Leo using noogie as a pillow, they got their salad ration the next day, and they both tucked into it without a fuss, I boiled an egg for them, as Sabrina had told me lionheart loves egg, they both played football with it, and then I cracked it open and let them have the insides, they lost interest then... typical, so for my breakfast I had an omelette, they preferred that, so scrambled egg is their preferred choice.

We took lionheart out with us shopping later that day, he's more of a pocket rat than a shoulder rat at the moment, but it was cold out (I made sure he was always warm, and had 2 rattie sleeping bags with me to wrap him up in if he didn't like the cool weather outside) he seemed to love being out and about, he'd poke his head out my pocket and sniff the new smells and watch the world going by him.

I weighed them both when we got Leo, noogie was 207 grams, and lionheart was 285 grams! shows how important the first few weeks of a ratties life is, poor noogie being a pet shop rattie didn't get such a good start in life as he should have, I weighed them again today, nugget is 232 grams!!! Leo is 290, so hopefully noogie isn't pining so much anymore, he definitely seems a lot happier to have a fellow rattie to play with, and they both have helped take our minds of Branden slightly.

I'll just explain Leo's colours... he's a silver mink Berkshire, the silver bit means he has white hairs mixed in amongst his coat, giving him a sort of silvery sheen, the mink bit is his main colour, (it's a nice light grey colour) and the Berkshire means he has a white belly patch, his isn't that good, it should be all his belly, insides of his legs, chest etc, he has a Y shaped stripe, but we don't care, we got him as a companion for Nugget and ourselves, not a show rattie where markings are more important than health and temperament.

That's all for now, I'll update this again soon, and get some good photo's of Leo with my proper camera.