Woohooo! Glad to hear he is healthy (besides the mites). I bet he'll soon realize that humans aren't all that bad and that you are the coolest rat mom.

he is such a beautiful little guy. I am sure he will learn that he is going to be living the high life and realize that you are going to be spoiling him rotten 

This is such a great story. I can't wait to read more of Sai's updates.

Hey! He looks like velveteen or something, not quite rex. Addie is the same I thought she was rex but over time her whiskers have gotten somewhat straight and her fur is more kinky than curly. But I say rex cause I dunno just what she is.

Can someone link to the original part of the story or sum it up for me?   

I read everything and then realized I have no idea what had happened in the first place!   

He's one pretty boy! He'll probably need some time to warm up. If you can get him into a play pen and sit with him while he plays, that would be a good way for him to get to know you.

Sai is continuing to recover - he's still a bit on the skinny side, but he has a healthy appetite and I'm sure in another couple of days, he'll look better. The poor little guy apparently had a broken leg before - his right hind foot is bent funny; it's hardly noticeable most of the time, but I think it affects his balance a bit. When he washes himself, if he leans too much on that foot, he loses his balance. It doesn't seem to be hurting him, though, so it's an old injury.

I've been able to get him out to hold him He didn't like it at first, but now I think he's realizing it isn't so bad - he seems to love the attention. (And I did a bit more research on coat types, out of curiosity; it definitely sounds like he's velveteen/teddy rex, rather than rex. He's so fuzzy; I love his fur ) I wiped him down with a wet washcloth, so he's a little cleaner now. I can hardly believe this is the same little rat we rescued a week ago. He gets so excited when he sees us, and he isn't skin and bones.

He's still not quite strong enough to use his water bottle, but he keeps trying, so we know he knows how to use it. We're keeping it attached to the side of his cage, and he has a water dish. Hopefully, by next week, he'll be able to use the water bottle without a problem.

We're taking Lightning into the vet to get the stitches out of his nose tonight and we'll be picking up some Revolution while we're there. Sai's going to be so happy to finally get rid of those mites. The poor boy just keeps scratching and scratching.

Once he's out of quarantine, and we intro him to Paws, Lightning, Lucky, Rin (previously Sabrina), and Shizuku (previously Natasha; she, Lucky, and Rin came to us the night before we rescued Sai) we'll be moving them into the big home-made cage and the group currently in there into the Martin's. I think it'll be much easier on Sai's back paw to not have to mess with wire ramps and levels, which the home-made cage doesn't have.

I do have some new pictures of Sai, but I didn't realize we don't have Photoshop on this computer right now - I'll re-size the pictures tonight on my computer and post them tomorrow morning.

Unfortunately, even after moving the traps, we didn't catch any others. We were hoping we would, but no such luck

EDIT:

We're re-thinking the broken leg - both his hind legs are bent funny...we aren't sure what's wrong, but I made a post in the rat care corner...I'll do some research and see what I can turn up.

He seems very happy - and I'm sure you're right that he'll become a cuddle bug.

Poor rex coat or not, he's a fluff, and I love him (calling him a teddy rex is cute, though...my mom said his fur reminds her of a scruffy teddy bear ). I don't really care about coat/color/markings, but I can't deny curiosity gets the better of me when I see something I've never seen before - I just have to figure out what it is X3

  Here are those pictures of little Sai I promised yesterday:

I think he smelled the other rats on my arm; we were cleaning cages, which meant I was handling the others quite a bit before him:


He's getting to be a very curious little guy:


Even curious enough to check out Misao last night when she jumped up on the bed:



Sai says: 'Hi dere Goosemoosers! Tank yoo fow all da nice tots. I's vewy happy so many peeples is glad I's okay and has a nice hooman family now! I's also vewy happy dat lots of peeples hewe gived my hoomans good advice to take cawe of me (like da baby food! It's nummy! Yoo awe good peeples fow tewing dem to give me nummy food! Maybe yoo cood tew dem to give me lots of yogies, too ). Tank yoo, tank yoo, Goosemoosers!'

He hasn't been treated for mites yet, so he still looks a little scruffier than he probably should, but we'll be treating him (and re-treating the rest of the colony) tonight after my mom gets home from work. I'll have more pictures next week, and hopefully the mites will have cleared up and he'll have gotten a bath.

I wasn't expecting to make another update on little Sai so soon, but I just couldn't wait to share what happened last night (and the pictures that go with it).
Wednesday evening, we treated everyone for mites and thoroughly scrubbed down their cages. Because of Sai's legs (it looks like the beginning of hind end degeneration) we moved him into our big one level cage, so he wouldn't have to deal with the ramp in the cage he was in before. The move to the new cage (and probably the smell of the outdoors, since we had a bunch of windows open) stressed him out and when I tried to get him out later to give him some attention, he bit me. Hard. Served me right, because he made it clear he didn't want to be touched.
Yesterday evening, I tried to get him out again, since he'd had time to settle into the new cage. I was able to and let him run around on mom's bed. Sai was happy to be out and get attention. I got up to do something on the computer (which is in my mom's room) and mom sat with him on the bed - he didn't want her, though, he wanted me. As soon as I sat back on the bed, he ran over to me. After a while, he started getting a little warn out, came over to me, and curled up with his head on my arm. By the time mom got the camera, he'd moved, but he was still cuddled against me.




Unfortunately, because of him probably having hind end degeneration, we won't be putting him in the home-made cage with the others, after all. We're adopting one more rat from HVRR (just waiting on his neuter) and we're hoping that he and Sai will get along so Sai isn't all by himself. If that doesn't work, we're going to try to figure out which female (all of whom are spayed) we could put in with him.

Sai seems to be doing better since we treated him for the mites - he isn't scratching quite so much. I love Revolution - that stuff works wonders; we had tried the ivermectin once and it didn't work nearly so well or so quickly. Sai's becoming a very happy little rattie - it's really amazing what almost two weeks has done for him.

And ratgirl2, he'll be getting lots of yogies once the ones we ordered get here (we kinda ran out X3)

He definitely is coming around. We have a rat who sounds just your girlie; Nanao puffs up as a warning (and we know it) but mom didn't listen and Nanao went *chompchompchompchomp*. I know Sai just did it because he was stressed - and I'm used to getting bit, anyway. Our cage-aggressive girlie (RIP, Aki) would come out of nowhere like a shark and go *chomp!* if we weren't careful, so I've been bit quite a few times. We love our biters just as much as we love the others, even if their idea of showing us love includes making us bleed all over We love his ears, too. (That was the first thing we noticed about him when we saw him for the first time X3 "He's a dumbo!" and the neighbor woman didn't know what we were talking about )