Sleepless Rats

Our rat cage is in our bedroom, which is both a sensible and terrible idea. Sensible, because it is a room with a lot of traffic and thus we interact with the girls a lot in passing. It is also useful, because it is an easy room to shut off from the rest of the house when we are gone, reducing the likelihood of a cat/rat/dog tragedy.

The downside of keeping the rats in our bedroom is their nocturnal lifestyle. They are at their most active when we are attempting to sleep. We try to counter this by waking them up earlier in the evening, making sure they have plenty of activity outside of their cage, and just generally interrupting their sleep throughout the day.

The funny thing about them is how different they are from each other. Sushi goes to bed very early in the morning - she's usually tucked away sleeping by 7:30 a.m. or so. On the other hand, Saké is up until much later in the morning, but she is very slow to wake up in the evening. Sushi is often active for an hour or more at night before Saké climbs out of bed.

Last night though, they were in sync. Loudly in sync. They moved all of their bedding from the top floor to the bottom of their cage, flipped a house, threw their blocks downstairs, moved their wheel, and in general engaged in nearly any activity they could that was noisy and likely to make sleeping tough for us.

Not surprising, we are exhausted today. The last time I glanced at the bento box, both Sushi and Saké were still happily asleep.

Saké and pillows - items that do not naturally go together.