#AccuRATe: A Look At Development: Day 1
#TalkNerdyToMeLover's Ashleigh Mayes
There’s nothing like life- or death- being thrown in your face to make you realize how funny it is. Seriously…have you ever thought about it? What are the odds that YOU would be born? Furthermore, what are the odds that you would make it? With mankind, it’s not that hard. We’ve got advances in medicine that people of the past couldn’t even imagine (that’s why most families had a crapload of kids…to ensure that their name would go on because not EVERY kid would make it past infanthood). But…what about nature? What about birds and bugs and animals?
The other day I adopted some foster rats. I’ve raised rats for the past, oh, two years. Say what you want, but if you do your homework, you’ll see that rats make AMAZING pets. Anyway…back to what I was saying. Within the first couple of days, you want to leave the rats alone. Let them get used to their surroundings…. Rats (and other small rodents) are very easily stressed with new owners (especially the older they are and the longer they’ve been with their previous owner), surroundings, and scents. I check on them once a day and then I feed them. The second time I looked into the cage, there was BLOOD EVERYWHERE. Immediately, I ripped the lid off of the cage and started digging. I was met by a very frustrated momma rat, mid-birth.
She’d delivered one baby already and he seemed to be doing fine. The second baby, however, didn’t fare well. I watched her deliver the third baby. He immediately opened up his mouth a squealed. That made me happy but sad at the same time. The first two babies were just laying there…this baby was squirming all over the place, trying to find food. I decided to leave her to it and get some sleep.
Needless to say, when I woke up in the morning, the babies who didn’t make it were gone. See…when any animal that is considered “prey” has offspring that doesn’t make it, their instinct tells them to get rid of the baby for the good of the litter. There’s only one way to do that. Yup. Ingestion. Yum. The scent attracts predators and that’s no bueno. The same concept applies to your cat. Ever wonder why the hell they bathe so much after a meal? It’s to get the scent of the food off of their fur. It’s not so much a big deal with a house cat, but their much larger and wilder ancestors would have bloody fur.
Back to the rats. Three babies made it. This is your day one report. When a baby rat is born, it has a white streak across its stomach. That’s called a “milk band”. It’s kind of like the yolk of an egg. The baby feeds off of it after it’s born. It ensures that the baby won’t die if it can’t quite get to the mom constantly. Transparent skin allows you to see this milk band. They pretty much look like little beans, still. They don’t have distinct toes and their ears are attached to their head. If a baby has black/blue looking eyes, the adult will have the same color. If no eye color shows through, the rat will have pink/red eyes. They’re vocalizing a lot, because, honestly, what would you do if you were blind and deaf?
Before you get too attached to these little guys, remember, nothing is guaranteed. The father to this particular litter is 4 or 5 years old. A rat’s life span is 3-5 years. His “seed” is literally no good. The two litters that he fathered before this one had no survivors. I have high hopes for these babies, but nature is cruel.
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