Well it stings like heck! I've washed it 3 times now. With any of my hand tame rats, I have been able to go into a tub/enclosure and mess with the babies with no problem. The most the mom will do if she is tired of me being there is come over and ever so gently put her teeth on my hand as if to say "Ok, I'm getting annoyed now" but it was never hard enough to hurt or draw blood.

Noel is not hand tame but her and another female (who I CO2ed just last week) have always been very aggressive(the first time they had their litters they were housed together and they fought over the babies so fiercely, some of the babies had to be culled due to huge gashes in their bodies or missing limbs). I also have to say that the offspring of those two females are very flighty and while not aggressive, show no interest in becoming friends with me.

I'm really starting to realize that starting over from scratch might just be the best idea. Get some young, newly weaned rats and raise them up myself instead of jumping in with some 6-8 week old flighty rats that I've never been able to hand tame.