Roofy the Roof Rat mating with Stumpy - strange tail wiggling
Like 1 Dislike 0 Published on 20 Dec 2018
Roofy, our amazingly cute, tame and friendly Roof Rat mated with Stumpy. It's not an "up close" video, because I didn't want to disturb them, but hopefully you can still see it.
Some interesting differences between her mating behaviour and that of Norway rats (which I breed.)
1. It was relatively hard to get her to mate. I had to spend some time with both her and Stumpy, to get them used to each other. They had shared a cage together for almost a week, but they showed little interest in mating, until I actually put them together in a play area with me and got them all playing and having fun. It's almost as if I played matchmaker and got them to "fall in love (or something)" before they would accept each other as mates. Then, they almost immediately progressed things from there.
Roofy didn't wiggle her ears, but she did wiggle her rear, hind legs and especially tail, and darted about a bit. You might be able to see the tail wiggling up and down in the video. I've never seen a Norway rat wiggle her tail like that, so it might be unique to Roof Rats. It was really kind of cute to watch, and I'm fairly confident that it means she was receptive and is most likely pregnant now.
We really love Roofy a lot. I am taking a chance by breeding her, because she is so unique that she is almost irreplaceable. However, it is because she is so unique that we decided to try. If her tameness is inheritable, we will hopefully eventually have more Roof Rats like her. Roof rats have not been domesticated yet, but if we could breed more like Roofy, there is no question that they would make excellent, and unique (that word again!) pets.
Please join us in praying for Roofy, that she has a safe and comfortable pregnancy, and produces more little ones just like her!
If you want to help us rescue and care for roof rats like Roofy and Stumpy, please donate to our gofundme: https://gofundme.com/help-me-care-for-rescued-baby-rats