A long-awaited litter has finally arrived!  First we waited til Mango was old enough for motherhood, and then we waited out the pregnancy… I didn’t want to unnecessarily worry those on our waiting list, but Mango’s weight was doing funny things during her pregnancy… it would go up, taking my hopes along with it, and the next time I weighed her, it would go down — again taking my hopes along with it!  This happened several times, as I discussed the matter with another breeder, we began to call her "the incredible inflating rat"!  Then, the litter’s arrival took me by surprise as it arrived a couple of days earlier than I expected, because of the late start in weight gain.  I guess one can always expect to be fooled by Mother Nature!

At any rate, the litter arrived on Friday, January 2nd, and Mango handled everything beautifully with the babies and herself doing very well.  Preliminary exam (very quick, while getting babies & mom settled in a clean, fresh igloo) looks like we have 7 girls and 5 boys.  Mango remained her sweet self throughout my handling the babies; she didn’t like them being moved, however, and proceeded to move them again herself so I decided to give her some time to adjust.  Check the litters page for photo and future updates.