Introducing Jingle

There's something very handsome about a little black rat. I think it's because they look like they're wearing little suits with their white cuffs and stripes down their tummies. Jingle is my third black rat and my previous two have both been little lovies. There was no question that the cutie in the black suit was coming home with us on the 7th of January.

And boy was he cute:

I don't have a huge number of photos of baby Jingle rat because he was very wary of both the camera and my phone. Plus he's very quick so by the time you've focused on him, he's no longer in the frame. The best way to catch him is to give him some food or to wait til he dozes off in the hammock.

Jingle rat (which can be sung to the tune of the popular Christmas song) or Jingly as he's known occasionally is also the original hammock rat. He was the first to figure out the hammock in the baby cage and can often be found there with the other half of the Terrible Twosome; Fezziwig.

Jingle has a little white stripe down his tummy, which kind of looks like a ballet dancer (though I only realised that this morning so I've not yet managed to snap a photo of it). He's lost all of his fuzzy, fluffy baby fur now and it's come in all sleek and shiny. He's got a hint of the agouti about his fur as well, there's a mix of grey and other dark shades in there.

He's quite a springy rat too (it must be a black rat thing). When he was still just a little dot he figured out how to jump across the the small cage from the grass house to the hammock. He can sleep in some really odd positions in the hammock, with various bits of him hanging out of the thing. I suspect that in the small cage he was trying to be top rat, but he was supplanted by his best friend Fez, but he seems cool with his position in the pecking order.

Jingle's usually one of the first to come out and try something new when we give them a bowl full of food. Broccoli was a definite hit, anything with eggs is guaranteed to go down well. I think the very top food so far was haggis, neeps and tatties.

He's probably one of the most playful out of the boys as well. He's so inquisitive that he'll stick his nose into almost anything. This evening I was reading my knitting magazine and he came along for a nibble to help me remember which page I'd gotten up to. I think I need to introduce him to the chase the ribbon game, the other night I rolled up a piece of toilet paper and wiggled it around the cage. He pounced and destroyed it with great gusto.

I'm planning on introducing him to fishing for peas this weekend. I think it'll go down pretty well with all four of them, but considering how playful Jingle is, coupled with how much he likes his food, I think he'll be thrilled with the game.

I'll be sure to get photos!