Oh my.. I got home from work a few minutes ago, dead tired.. I am lucky that I did not have to pull over and take a nap, and the bags under my eyes.. bt I digress. I went into the bathroom.. came out, and what on earth is eating my cat's food but a Wild Rat!??! I first thought it was maybe an escapee that got out and grew a little bit.. come to think of it, I did have an escapee months back that hypothetically could be adult-sized now.. but no. It is a brown, tawny-colored, wild farm rat.
Here's where it gets good. Last night, I was showing Mark the wild-looking Rexes that I had bred recently.. I told him to just grab one to feed to Ginger. Well, instead of the normal fearful response of our captive rats, this one leapt up onto Mark's hand and chomped him! I have literally never had any rat in my colony be aggressive before.. not like this. So Mark euthanized the rat and we fed it to Ginger. It was brown but had Rex whiskers and fur so I know it was not wild.. not to mention one of my old reliable Hoodeds reared it..
But; her cage has a grill-type top. So hypothetically, a wild female could have walked by with a baby in her mouth and dropped one in.. but that does not explain why that baby was rex. I have not bred using Rex studs for that long.. maybe since March-April.. would that be enough time for a baby from a breeding in those months, to escape, impregnate a wild rat and then have her drop a baby into my domestics' cage?
I put the foundling wild rat in a cage outside; I don't have the heart to kill it for some reason. I know that I can't keep it in my colony, and would not want to.. but oh geez why do these things happen only when I worked all day and am literally falling asleep at the computer??