Births, Deaths and Marriages

It's been a mixed up week here, happy, sad, exciting, shocking, and that's only to do with our pets.  Here is a brief synopsis of the animal-related happenings this week:
1.  On Tuesday we realised that someone had put a young female in with the males.  Okay no big deal, she might be pregnant, and that's okay.  We were going to keep one of the baby girls anyway, the whitest one, but this one will have to do, we thought.  Until it was discovered that someone had also put a young male in with all the females.  That's not okay.  We are not prepared to keep all the females "just in case" they are pregnant.  Well fortunately we did some google-ing and found an early sign (read:practically immediate) of pregnancy, and non of our females had it, so HAPPY DAY they weren't pregnant, we checked again for the next couple of days just in case, but we're confidant.
2.  On Wednesday at about lunchtime, the mother rat had another litter of baby rats, 8 this time, but one died.  They were in the canaries cage (the canaries were in the rat cage), because that way we could separate the young males from the females, and because the bars are slightly wider than the rat cage, the babies all fell though to the bottom tray and the mother couldn't help the baby that had the birth sac still wrapped around it's face and by the time we realised there were babies (it's a very quiet event) the poor thing was dead.  Time for another cage swap - mama needs a cage with smaller bars.
3.  That afternoon, we had the canaries out enjoying some sunshine in their (rat) cage, and when I went to bring them in, our little female, Holly, was dead in her bird bath.  Very sad event.
4.  On Thursday morning the young rats were sold to the pet shop for $2.00 each, which, after tithe is taken out, gives the boys $10.00 each to save up.
5.  And while they were at the pet shop selling rats, the Mister and Master B selected a new canary, also named Holly, as was the female before her, and the female before her.  May they rest in peace.  She is the new "bride" for Harry, our male canary, hence the "marriages" in the post title.
6.  Finally, this afternoon I took the kids to a playground and when we came back home we had a surprise awaiting us.  About a month ago I bought a new guinea-pig, Ginny.  I thought she was a baby.  Turns out she was old enough to breed, because when we bought her she was pregnant.  We had no idea until Miss A went to hold her guinea-pig this afternoon and found a teeny tiny perfect little miniature guinea-pig.  Really, it's amazing how they look just like an adult guinea-pig only tiny.  Complete with a coat of thick hair, unlike rats, which are completely hairless, blind and helpless.  This baby guinea-pig is running around, exploring, acting like...a guinea-pig...
So there you have it, and exciting week with our animals, tons of surprises, hopefully no more for a while.