My daughter has been around rats since she was very young and together with her friends makes sure that all my rats are well handled pets!!!! She was recently a rat leader in a school play and here Yogie meets his match!!!
please feel free to e.mail if you would like to and any comments would be welcome in my guest book at the end of the page
shazratuk@yahoo.com
Christine with Oliver, a cinnamon rex buck that I bred a few years ago. He was a cuddly buck and loved being out playing.
All of my rats, kittens included, have to undergo many hours of being cuddled as I think that is the main reason for keeping rats...they are pets before they are show animals.
Seagull Rats is not an official stud name registered with any organisation, it is just a name with which to associate my rats. My aim in this website is to hopefully convey my love of rats and share my opinions and experiences, provide some useful links to other ratty sites, advertise any kittens that I may have available and any other ideas that may spring to mind as time goes by!! I am a member of the NFRS and an area co-ordinator.
WHY RATS
In 1994 my eldest son started to plague me with pleas of "Can I have a rat". I greeted him with the rather typical response of "Yuk". Like most people ignorant of the true nature of fancy rats I just cringed at the thought of having the disgusting animals in my house and just the sight of a tail would be enough to have me running in the opposite direction! He would not let the subject drop as they had rats at school and he promised he knew how to look after them etc etc. I relented in 1995 and we set off to the local pet shop after he had agreed that ‘it’ would live in his room and I would never set foot in there so he would have to clean not only the rat but the room also. At the pet shop they had a lot of hooded does and I insisted on buying just one ( I know now that they should never be kept alone) who he named Terra. She lived in his room but when he was at school I would go in to check that he was keeping up his end of the bargain and that she had food and also that I could still see his carpet……I never managed to catch him out! Every time I would open the bedroom door Terra would rush to the front of the cage and I found myself talking to her and over time I would take a treat up for her. One thing always leads on to another and before long I was doing the housework with her sitting on my shoulder and we became best buddies.
By this point I was smitten with rats and as I had a toddler I discovered that they were in fact the safest pet I could find for small children. The cats would scratch, the dogs might bite, gerbils were too quick and hamsters wouldnt like the extreme attention provided by a group of preschool age children playing ‘ I want to hold….no, I want to hold….I was holding first’ etc etc as all young children do. The rats would be eager to come out to play and I had a mink rex buck by this time who loved nothing more than being pushed around in a buggy being fed treats.
I joined the NFRS, got lots of rat books and started to attend shows. My first show was at Surbiton, when it was the old hall, and I loved the experience so much I started to travel around to lots of not so close venues!! I ordered my first ‘breeders’ rats from Cat Russ who provided me with a beautiful black rex who I called Voodoo and also the mink rex (Ben) as described above and a blue buck called Darcy. That was the beginning and I guess the rest is history.
If you have any questions or comments then please contact me either through my guestbook or e.mail.
This cute boy is Alphacentauri Yogie and he is a cuddly silver grey dumbo rex. He is really laid back and loves a lot of fuss and attention and is usually the rat that the children get out as he just flops and therefore there are no nails to scratch them!!
Seagull Rats is based on the Sussex coast just outside of Brighton and if you were sitting in my garden you would understand why I chose the name I did. I must admit that Brighton and Hove Albion being known as Seagulls also came into the equation....
The guestbook takes a while to load up so please be patient and thanks to everyone who has mailed me to keep me informed of kitten progress, it is always nice to hear from you all.
