A Rat's Tail

04/04/2026

Happy Easter to all from Obsidian (who got his easter egg this morning at the at the ASB Showground.

We are here with loads of fun activities such as shopping, the cuddle corner, name the rat, coloring in, scavenger hunts, a junior vet clinic and kissing both.

Come and see us and say "These rats are the absolute bomb!" And win a free rat badge.

04/04/2026

WIN!!!
We have five tickets to give away for the Easter Show, so you can come and visit us today, tomorrow or Monday!

All you need to do is:
- Like this post
- Post a picture of your pet below

First five people to post a picture will get a free entry ticket emailed through to them!

30/03/2026

🐀💛 VOLUNTEERS NEEDED – EASTER SHOW! 💛🐀

Hey rat lovers! We’re looking for a few more volunteers — especially for Sunday & Monday.

Shifts:
• Morning: 9:30am – 2:00pm
• Afternoon: 2:00pm – 6:30pm
(You’re welcome to do a full day or multiple days!)

We’d still love to hear from you if you’re only available Friday or Saturday 💛

🐀 Help with cuddles, chats, and activities
✨ Free entry + bring your own rats if you’d like!

Keen? DM us with:
• Your rat experience (years)
• Whether you currently own rats
• Any vet/husbandry experience

We’d absolutely love your help making this weekend amazing!

28/03/2026

✨ We will be at the Easter Show next weekend! ✨

📅 3–6th April 2026
📍 Auckland Showgrounds

Come visit A Rat’s Tail & Friends for a weekend full of fun and learning! We’ll have:
🐾 A cuddle corner
🩺 A mock vet clinic (become a certified junior vet!)
🛍️ Shopping for your exotics
🐭 Name the rat
🎉 And loads of other fun, educational activities!

🎟️ Grab your tickets online here: https://www.eastershow.co.nz

We hope to see you there! 💕

27/03/2026

Day 5/5: 🌱 What’s coming next for A Rat’s Tail 🌱

There’s a lot happening behind the scenes at the moment — and I’m so excited to start sharing more of it with you all 👀✨

📚 Education
One of my biggest goals is to improve rat education here in New Zealand.
There’s a lot of conflicting and overseas-based information out there, so I’ve been building a NZ-focused resource hub (which is why the website is currently under construction!).

You’ll also be able to find us at:
📍 Easter Expo — 3–6 April (Auckland Showgrounds)
📍 Pet Expo — 19–20 September (Auckland Showgrounds)

🛍 Store Updates
Big changes are coming 👀

• A rebrand/name change is on the way
• Expanding into products for all exotics
• Improving shipping to be faster & more affordable

While I’m overseas, the online store will have limited items available — but we will still be open 💛

I’m so excited to be back — or at least as back as I can be while balancing health and life.

Thank you all so much for being here and supporting what I do 🐀✨💛

26/03/2026

Day 4/5: 🤝 Working together for better rats 🤝

One of the most exciting changes moving forward is that I’m no longer doing this alone 💛

I’m now working alongside some incredible breeders:
✨ Whisky Tails Rattery
✨ Cosmo Rodents
✨ Theo's Nest

Having a small, like-minded network means we can:
• Support each other
• Share knowledge
• Keep each other accountable
• Continue improving the standard of rats in NZ

I’m especially excited to introduce Theo’s Nest 🐀💛
She is a passionate, knowledgeable, and genuinely caring rat lover who is committed to ethical breeding and doing what’s best for the community.

While I’m overseas next month (supporting my mum as she donates a kidney to her brother 💛), Theo's Nest will be fostering two upcoming pairings:
• Chaos × Ralph
• Mayhem × Casper

I feel incredibly lucky to have such amazing people supporting both myself and my ratties 🐀✨

25/03/2026

25/03/2026

Day 3/55: 🐣 Meet the start of something new 🐣

I’m so excited to finally introduce the first litter of our fresh start ✨

On January 4th, we welcomed a beautiful litter from
💛 Peaches × Sonnie 💛
This marks the beginning of our Pomoria Line 🐀

From this litter, we’ve kept two very special babies:

🧡 Squash — Agouti Self Fluffy boy
🎃 Pumpkin Pie — Fawn Self Carrier girl

Pumpkin Pie will be paired in approximately 6 months, and Squash at 18 months as we continue developing this line with a strong focus on health and temperament.

It feels really special to be building something new, the right way 💛
I can’t wait to share more as they grow - We have a couple of litters coming up that we will be announcing in our next post!

24/03/2026

Over the next few days, I’ll be sharing a little behind-the-scenes update on A Rat’s Tail — where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re heading 💛🐀

Day 2/5 — A Fresh Start for the Rattery

Over the past two years, I made the really difficult decision to step back from breeding and take a proper look at the direction I wanted to go.
After a lot of reflection, talks with different breeders outside the big groups, talking to veterinary professionals (and seeing the real impact in clinic), I made the call to retire all of my previous lines due to ongoing health and behavioural concerns. Yes, that does mean that I have stopped all my lines who came from Odin and Oni, who you knew were my heart rats, and I hope all the lines connected to them are due to the issues.

It wasn’t an easy decision at all — but it was the right one.

I was seeing too many underlying issues, especially within the "main" fluffy/Angora and markings lines, where health and temperament were sometimes being compromised to achieve a certain look, and seem to keep happening. That’s not something I’m willing to continue.

So… we’re starting fresh ✨

Moving forward, my focus is:
• Health first — always
• Strong, stable temperaments
• Ethical, responsible breeding practices
• Proper tracking and continual review

This reset means we can build something better — not just for my rattery, but for the wider NZ rat community 💛

Featuring cutie little Corn who has since been adopted out (look at his cute little fluffy face!)

23/03/2026

Over the next few days, I’ll be sharing a little behind-the-scenes update on A Rat’s Tail — where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re heading 💛🐀

Day 1/5 — ✨ A little life update ✨

Hi everyone ♥

I just wanted to pop on and say a big thank you for sticking with me, and also a bit of an apology for the lack of updates over the past while. As some of you may know, I was involved in a car accident in June last year. I tried my best to keep everything running as normal, but I’ve been dealing with ongoing back injuries, procedures and concussion symptoms, which can cause random health relapses.

This means there are times where I end up out of action for a few days, which has led to slower replies or little gaps in updates. You may have also noticed I haven’t been around the clinic as much until recently because of this.

I am slowly improving, but it’s still an ongoing journey — so I really appreciate your patience and kindness while I work through it 💛

Thank you for continuing to support A Rat’s Tail and my little ratties 🐀✨

21/09/2025

❤️ THANK YOU!!! 🐀🐇🦜

I just wanted to say thank you so much to everyone who came to support us at this year's Auckland Pet Expo! From our amazing volunteers, to the boys on tech support and managing the store, to our special guests from Pet Doctors St Luke's, to our amazing photographer, to our guest artist who brought our pets to life, to my mom who sewed up a storm, and to those friends from a far who supported kind words and helped out with ideas and posters. YOU GUYS ARE THE BOMB ❤️❤️

It was so incredibly to see past adopters (even some from my first ever litter!), but always meet amazing new people throughout the Exotics community.

We will be spending a day or two recover (especially with our spinal injury) and unpack before we update our website with new products (Like our Pea Flakes that sold out!) and send out current orders.

Yet again, thank you to all for a fantastic weekend and we can't wait to see everyone again next year! 🩷