Everything is going really well for the new mom so far. Nary a problem has happened (outside of Brook chewing through my phone wire on one of her excursions outside the tank). The babies are really showing their colors and close up you can see their little whiskers. I finally held the little tykes. Well, five of the seven. Six of them look so much a like, by the fifth one, I couldn't tell which ones I had held and which ones I hadn't. From what I could tell of the five I did hold, three are boys, two are girls. The one clear one is a girl. But then again, what do I know? I thought their mom was a boy.

This was the first one I held. It's a boy. He was the only one I held that was pretty still the whole time. As soon as I put him back in the bunch, he crawled under his brothers and sisters.

This one is also a boy. He's a cute little bugger. Brook came right up my arm and to my hand as I held this pup. She didn't seem to have any problem with me holding the babies.

The lighting on this one was pretty bad. This is the only non-colored baby. The baby is the exact same color as my skin. And this one's a female. She really sticks out of the bunch.

The babies are doing real well. They all move around a lot and squeak and bunch together all the time. As you see, they all have pretty much the same coloring. I'm pretty certain the father is big Felix. They have his markings and one appears to be an albino. Felix's brother Oscar is albino, so I assume their mom or dad was. So it looks like the big daddy is the one who can no longer be a big daddy (Felix has since been fixed). Felix also wants to get in their tank more than any of the other boys. I don't know if it's because he wants to jump Brook's bones again, or if he wants to eat the babies or if he just wants her food. For a rat with no nards, the guy still seems pretty horny. I will be cleaning out the tank this weekend, so I'll have a clearer viewpoint on how many girls and boys in the bunch.

This little baby, the fourth one I held, was all over the place, far and away the most active, just like her father!