Theres some redish-brown things on them ratties of yours?

From one rattie owner...
Just about 15 minutes ago I gave my two ratties a bath and noticed some redish-brown things on them. I took one off and looked at it under a miscroscope and what I saw was a VERY disgusting-looking insect. I'm pretty sure they are mites. My ratties don't have any scabs yet and there weren't many (at least not visible) mites. I'm note sure where they got them from though. I don't have any wood in their cage but I read that they can be in cardboard and other paper products, is that true? I'll probably take them to the vet but before I do that is there anything I can do to get rid of them at home?

...to another...
get rid of all of the bedding, wipe out the house with vinegar water and leave it out in the sun for an hour or two (w/o the ratties of course!)...vaccuum your house thoroughly of course and go see the vet for mite medication.

hope that helps...

Is your rat an artist?

Hampstead and Highgate Express: "She stressed that local artists are welcome to join in activities at CAC - and many do. A highlight this month is the Rat Fair on August 27, with a beauty parlour and drawing competition for pet rats. Is Your Rat An Artist? is open to all rats applying in advance. Four days later Lucy Kimbell talks about her aesthetic experiments in One Night with Rats in the Service of Art.

Two human local artists Lomax cited as having shown at CAC are Jacques Nimski of Swiss Cottage and Cerith Wyn Evans of Holborn. In the Ham&High sense, current exhibitor Rachel Kneebone is local because she lives in Islington, though the CAC's publicity counts her as an east London artist because her studio is there.

Rat art...its a MonetRat, its a Van Rat

How your Rat's feeling holds the key to his health and happiness.

CNW Telbec: "LOS ANGELES, Aug. 23 /CNW/ --

Mental health care isn't just for humans anymore. Mental Health and Well-being in Animals, published this month by Blackwell Publishing, is the first textbook to be written on mental health in animals. Recent research has now clearly shown that psychological and emotional issues once believed important only for people-happiness, stress management, the mind-body connection, emotional suffering, mental illness, emotional abuse, and mental cruelty -- are experienced by animals. With writings by the world's leading authorities in the fields of animal emotion research, animal behavior, cognitive science, neuroscience, and veterinary medicine, this landmark textbook ushers in a new era of animal care and establishes mental health as a bona fide field of animal health care.

Franklin D. McMillan, D.V.M., on the adjunct faculty of the Western University of Health Sciences College of Veterinary Medicine and the editor-author of the text, noted that, "Until very recently, mental health
issues in animals were important only when they caused pets to do things that their owners would disapprove of-so-called 'misbehavior' -- that would then be dealt with by training techniques to 'correct' the behavior. And mental health concerns for farm animals, laboratory and research animals, and captive birds weren't even heard of." He added, "We now know we can make the lives and emotional well-being of animals much better than we could in the past, and directing our efforts at what goes on in their heads is the key to maximizing
their quality of life."

Throughout the history of medicine and psychology the scientific community as a whole had given no meaningful credence to the concern of mental health in animals, often simply dismissing it as naive anthropomorphism. Jaak Panksepp, a neuroscientist at Bowling Green State University and the discoverer of laughter in rats, said, "The scientific evidence supporting animal emotions is now overwhelming. After all, every drug used to treat emotional and psychiatric disorders in humans was first developed and found effective in animals. This kind of research would obviously have no value if animals were incapable of experiencing these emotional states."

McMillan stresses that the establishment of a field of mental health in animals does not only mean that pets and other animals will receive care for emotional distress and mental illnesses, but also that "we now have the knowledge and tools to help animals enjoy lives that are fulfilled rather than just physically healthy."

Dr. Franklin D. McMillan is associated with Western University of Health Sciences College of Veterinary Medicine in Southern California and the author of Unlocking the Animal Mind: How Your Pet's Feelings Hold the Key to His Health and Happiness.

Hows your rat feeling? Mental health and well-being to you and your rat :-)

First there was Rats now someone, somewhere is trying to clone a human Now

Scientists have been cloning animals for many years. In 1952, the first animal, a tadpole, was cloned. Researchers have since cloned a menagerie of large and small animals including a wild ox, sheep, goats, cows, mice, pigs, rats, cats and rabbits.

Some have been named, including Ralph the Rat and CC the cat (short for copy cat or carbon copy) but none has outshone the most famous clone of all, Dolly the Sheep. In 1997 Ian Wilmut and other scientists at Scotland's Roslin Institute created Dolly from an unnamed mother, in what Science magazine hailed as the breakthrough of the year: the first mammal cloned from the cell of an adult animal rather than an embryo, proving that adult cells can be manipulated to take up new forms.

Not only did Dolly make human cloning a more realistic prospect than ever before, she also spawned a whole ethical debate.

Snuppy - short for Seoul National University Puppy - has reignited that debate. The puppy is the latest achievement of the team lead by cloning pioneer Professor Woo-suk Hwang. While geneticists hailed the birth as a step towards beating human diseases (many canine diseases are similar), others called for a worldwide ban on human cloning saying the dog had brought the eventuality closer.

Rats are always the first choice...