Råttis & Thumpi were my first rats ever. Råttis was an agouti european berkshire male, and Thumpi was an agoti hooded female. They were litter mates, their father was a chocolate european berkshire, called Gubbegubben, and their mother was a Wistar female. They were both big rats, with very good heads and good type. Råttis was a large beautiful male.
Råttis & Thumpi were born on the 23rd of March 1988. When I got them from my friend Jalle they were just babies. At first I called them both Råttis, which was a big mistake. They seemed unnerved by both having the same name, so I just had to rename one of them. "Råttis" is a nick name for rat, just like "rattie". I believe many rats in Sweden are called Råttis. They were trained to come when called, which caused the problem. After I renamed the female to Thumpi I had no more problems with their training.
Since I had one female and one male they had a few litters together, at least two as I can remember. Thumpi always let me cuddle her babies in the nest from they were almost newborn, but I didn't like to cuddle any babies that hadn't grown any fur yet. I kept one female from one of the litters, and I called her Sandra. I do remember that one of their babies was a black hooded mismarked, and I was surpriced that they could have a black baby, but then I didn't know that much genetics back then. I did start to learn genetics rather soon afterwards, though.
Råttis turned aggressive towards other male rats when he was an adult, but never towards me. I already knew back then that aggression in rats isn't normal, since I had worked with laboratory rats for many years already (mainly Wistar rats), and they don't turn aggressive. It felt extremely sad to keep him in a cage of his own, but I could not let him live with Thumpi, I couldn't care for any more rat babies. He was a very big rat by then, and since he was so nice towards me all the time I spent a lot of extra time with him. Although I did know it wasn't normal for rats I had no clue how bad it was, and that it was a serious genetic "illness" in rats. None of Råttis' babies turned aggressive, that I know of. I never mated Råttis with any other female than Thumpi.
Since Thumpi was such a great rat I also mated her with my wonderful silver fawn hooded mismarked male Fnutten, and I got one whole litter of wonderful agouti hooded in rex and smooth. That litter was born on the 26th of January in 1989 and one of the babies was called Simbad. This litter was very popular and I sold all of them, since I by then already was crazy about silver fawns, and was actively looking for more silver fawn rats to breed from. I saw a lot of Simbad since he went to a friend of mine.
Thumpi had skin problems when she grew older, mainly around her neck, that made her scratch as crazy. I asked for help from the swedish rat club that I was a member of, but they all said she was allergic to her food. She never got better. Next time I had the same problem with a rat they still said the same. So I searched for scientific information and found out that this symptom is consistent with a mite infestation that is easily cured. When I tried to medicate my rats I had success within a week. But when I tried to spread the word I learned that the people in the Swedish rat club didn't want to believe me, and tried to stop me from getting the information out. I felt sad for all the rats that never got the benefits from this.
All photos on this page were taken by me in April 1989.
Copyright Eva Johansson.
Last update: 18th of October 2004.