Readers digest version:
I answered an ad on kijiji, someone had a litter of babies and was looking for homes but also was asking if anyone had a friend or 2 for the male as well.
I emailed her asking her if she had thought of keeping 2 baby boys for the male, and we started conversing.
Story - soft-hearted woman kept stealing rats from being fed to the snake. After the snake refused them, they were dumped in a box with no food or water for a week. If they survived...good, if not, more rats would be bought. It started with one female, then another, then Tatiana (as I named her) and finally a male (of which she didn't recognize as male until she saw obvious mating, and pulled him out to put him into a cage with smaller barspacing).
Unfortunately, 2 girls were pregnant, a PEW and my Tati. Tati being a tiny young scared thing had 4 babies on Oct., 13th, then 2 days later, the PEW had 8 more, which she promptly dumped in with Tati's babies and walked away, to ignore them ever more. Tatiana fed them all, kept them all alive...but basically milked the flesh off her own bones.
She was also kept in the bottom of the stack of 3 cages, a large bunny cage where she could slip easily through the bars and get out...she would climb all around her tower, defending it with extremely ready teeth. When I talked to Monica, she said she hadn't seen or heard any babies for 3 days (she had never handled them or any of the rats except for when she picked them up to rescue them)...so we arranged to meet that night at Scarborough Town Centre and she drove me to her home in Whitby.
I was sooo worried that the babies were dead, or mom had relocated them, or the babies had gotten through the bars and been killed by the 4 cats and excited little chihuahua.
Luckily when I lifted the nest, there was all 12... *whew* but they were scary tiny!!!!! Like half the size and development they should've been. Mom was scary thin and small too, and very very defensive. A true biter. Not just one who was misunderstood. I get bitten regularly with her, but strangely enough her babies are confident, sweet, licky and playful. She's a GREAT little mom, great with other rats, just hates humans and especially hands...although elbows for some reason have been incredibly tasty lately
I ended up taking home Dad, now named Gus, who's a sweet boy who didn't know he was unsocialized. A lot of squirming initially then "Ohhhhh", the lightbulb goes off in his head
Tatiana and her 12 monkeys also came home that night.
I left the 2 other girls after showing Monica how to handle and hold these 2. Being feeder rats I had a short time to work with them but they were very receptive. The fawn is quieter but more nervous, the more overt PEW was awesome, from stinky fear poop, to bruxxing, sprawled over my arm in 20 mins
Then we went to Dollarama, and Petsmart to pick up proper supplies, and she was going to get them a wheel from Pet Valu the next day.
The babies are fat and sassy now and now that I have my computer again, I can take nice pics and post them