Hello! My name is Ashten. Sweet Whispers Rattery is located in Pottsville, PA. I'll tell you a little about myself first. I have a 4 year old daughter, Aurora, and my husband, Brian, who also helps me a great deal with the rats. I've grown up with animals for as long as I can remember. I was given my first pair of does at around 8-10 years old, Bubbles and Sprite, I remember them to this day. Those sweet girls got me into rats. I just totally fell in love and from then on I have always had rats. I started learning more and more about them as I got older. From my early teen years I knew I wanted to have a Rattery someday just wasn't sure how long down the road that would be. Finally after 12 years my dream has finally come true of owning my own small Rattery.

Sweet Whispers Rattery is registered with the NARR (North American Rat Registry) under the prefix STWR.

Here at Sweet Whispers Rattery we are a closed Rattery, due to viruses that can be brought in. They easily spread and quickly destroy a rat colony. This is done for the safety of our rats. Though we are more than willing to send you as many pictures as you'd like from time of birth till the time you pick up your babies.

All of our rats come from a nice home environment and are very social. Their cages are right in our dining and living room where they get exposure to different sounds, people, etc. Our litters will be very well socialized before going to their new homes. Temperament is very important to us. No rats with poor temperament will be used in our breeding program.

Our main lines are our marked line, downunder line and black eyed siamese line. With our marked line we will be working with dalmatian, patched, masked, variegated etc. Our downunder line will be a combination of our pearl merles and dalmatian rats (spotted downunders). Our dwarfs will be a part of both our marked line and possible merle line. The Black Eyed Siamese will go hand in hand with our Manx and Burmese.

A peak inside our Rattery
We have a small rattery. Our 2 current main cages are 2 Ferret Nation model 142 cages along with the Marshall Penthouse. We also have a large Flight Cage as an extra. Towards fall we'll be getting a Critter Nation for our dwarfs. We have an array of other cages around when needed. We are always prepared. We also have a Martin's Rat Retreat (R-680) & Rat Lodge (R-685) powder coated, Super Pet Deluxe Care Home 4-Level, 4 sick/travel cages, 2 small travel bins for babies, 3 large travel bins and 3 maternity Cages. Below are pictures of some of our cages. As we get more pictures we'll update.

Here at our rattery we use a variety different bedding types which include Aspen, CareFresh, material and sometimes newspaper. They love a few pieces of newspaper to shred for makings their nests/sleeping areas nice n' comfy.

We also always make sure our rats are at a proper weight. We weigh them regularly. Also we use our grams scale for pregnant does to track their progressing pregnancy making sure they are indeed pregnant and are gaining properly.

What we feed here at our rattery consists of a staple diet of Native Earth 4018 Rodent Diet and a homemade mix similar to Suebee's mix. They are stored in Sterilite bins for freshness. We also give them other goodies which include fresh fruits, vegetables, yogurt, occasional healthy table scraps and once a week olive oil soaked in a small piece of wheat or multigrain bread which helps their skin and coat. We also provide clean fresh water at all times. We change out the water bottles every 2-3 days. Below are pictures of their staple diet. Though the mix sometimes varies from month to month.