{"id":5845,"date":"2013-07-11T14:26:01","date_gmt":"2013-07-11T19:26:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nicole.sleepyfroggie.net\/blog\/?p=5845"},"modified":"2013-07-12T11:09:18","modified_gmt":"2013-07-12T16:09:18","slug":"introducing-hershey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nicole.sleepyfroggie.net\/blog\/?p=5845","title":{"rendered":"Introducing Hershey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/halo969\/9264797012\/\" title=\"Hershey\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.staticflickr.com\/3774\/9264797012_e3cca51fd7.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"Hershey\" class=\"entry\"><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Monday evening we went to Petco to pick up some Aspen bedding for the hamster, Nougat, and I spotted this cute little rat who totally reminded me of a baby version of my old rat, Templeton. Since Winston is extremely clingy, and I can&#8217;t spend hours with him every day, I decided to get the little rat in hopes they will eventually become buddies. I named the little guy Hershey because he&#8217;s dark brown and seems sweet, although right now he&#8217;s very scared but will approach me carefully, then quickly run away. He&#8217;s not keen on being picked up but doesn&#8217;t go completely crazy either. <\/p>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wjPLcYi3z8Y?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p>I ended up moving Winston into the large cage we had in the garage and put Hershey into the cage Winston came in because Hershey is so small I was worried he&#8217;d be able to escape through the bars of the larger cage since they are spaced further apart. I have the cages side by side (with some space) in the spare bedroom so they can get used to each other without possibly killing one another. Winston is a sweetheart, but that&#8217;s with people and Bella (video below of Bella &#8220;playing&#8221; with Winston); I&#8217;m not sure how he will react toward another rat since he&#8217;s always been by himself. I&#8217;ve been letting both rats out of their cages today at the same time but divided the room with a fence so they can&#8217;t get too close to one another. <\/p>\n<p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QXyMkZB_G3s?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Once Hershey is more accustomed to his surroundings I will do an official meet and greet in the bathtub (neutral territory) so they are forced to interact, but in a small enough space that I can quickly intervene if things get heated. I read how male rats tend to be very territorial and can <strong>disembowel<\/strong> (yikes!) another rat over it so that&#8217;s why I didn&#8217;t just throw them in a single cage together and hope for the best.<\/p>\n<p>I do hope they end up liking one another, however, so that once I&#8217;m working again they can live together in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wayfair.com\/Midwest-Homes-For-Pets-Critter-Nation-Double-Unit-with-Stand-162-MDW1242.html\" target=\"_blank\">this kickass cage<\/a> I&#8217;d like to buy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Monday evening we went to Petco to pick up some Aspen bedding for the hamster, Nougat, and I spotted this cute little rat who totally reminded me of a baby version of my old rat, Templeton. Since Winston is extremely clingy, and I can&#8217;t spend hours with him every day, I decided to get the little rat in hopes they will eventually become buddies. I named the little guy Hershey because he&#8217;s dark brown and seems sweet, although right now he&#8217;s very scared but will approach me carefully, then quickly run away. He&#8217;s not keen on being picked up but doesn&#8217;t go completely crazy either. I ended up moving Winston into the large cage we had in the garage and put Hershey into the cage Winston came in because Hershey is so small I was worried he&#8217;d be able to escape through the bars of the larger cage since they <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/nicole.sleepyfroggie.net\/blog\/?p=5845\">Read More &#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pets","category-photos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicole.sleepyfroggie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5845"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicole.sleepyfroggie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicole.sleepyfroggie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicole.sleepyfroggie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicole.sleepyfroggie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5845"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/nicole.sleepyfroggie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5852,"href":"https:\/\/nicole.sleepyfroggie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5845\/revisions\/5852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nicole.sleepyfroggie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicole.sleepyfroggie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nicole.sleepyfroggie.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}