Name: Thomasina (or Habib) Sex: Doe Variety: Black roan Date of birth: July/August 2002 Weight: 295g (5 November 2002)

Thomasina is Deb's birthday rat, an unplanned addition collected from the NFRS/MRC Bradford show on 19 October 2002. Not much is known about her background or pedigree, although her littermates and Mum are all also black roans and she was part of an unplanned litter. She is rather small for her age and was quite nervous, but she soon settled in with Poppy and Rosie, both RSPCA rescue rats, very easily and they seem to be good for each other as they have all become much more outgoing and confident. It's not uncommon for rats to end up with two names in our house. When Deb first started thinking of ideas for a name, Ed wanted to name her Habib after an Indian restaurant we passed in Bradford, but Deb wanted to go with Thomasina, a character from one of Thomas Hardy's books.