The Packrat – Time for Tea by Celia Klassen

The packrat is not the sort of creature you want to take up residence in your motorhome. Don’t ask me how I know.
What is a packrat anyway? I’ve called one of my children a packrat more than once after cleaning the scary territory that is under a child’s bed. I called them that because somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I knew that was the term for someone who hoards things. Then when the unfortunate experience with the motorhome occurred, and the word “packrat” was mentioned, I sort of forgot the other use for the word and assumed it meant they live in packs.
Thankfully for the motorhome, this is not the case. Unfortunately for the motorhome, their favorite thing to do is chew electrical wires. The packrat is usually a solitary creature except when mating or raising its young.
Another name for a packrat is a “bushy tailed wood rat”. For those who haven’t had the misfortune to meet one, it’s essentially a squirrel although its tail is the same width all the way down. They are light grey in color. Now that I think about it, that’s probably why it reminded me of a squirrel, because squirrels in London are light grey rather than the red variety in this area. Bushy-tailed woodrats measure from 9 to 18 inches in length and weigh 4 to 4.75 ounces.
They can be found in a variety of habitats, from deserts to pine forests to motorhomes. They are also versatile in the type of places they live such as burrows, caves, houses they make out of sticks, cactus joints, debris, and motorhome cushions. Their diet is varied and provides enough water that they don’t need to have a constant source of water. They are usually vegetarian and eat cacti, mesquite beans, seeds, leaves and fruit, oh and electrical wiring.
They are fairly low in the food chain, being prey for snakes, foxes, great horned owls, coyotes and the domestic cat. All of those animals are native to our area and thankfully packrats have considerably fewer young ones than mice. Like mice, they reach sexual maturity at only two months old, but whereas mice have between five and fourteen ‘pups’, packrats only have between two and five. The gestation period is only a month, and they are weaned within a few weeks. They can have multiple litters per year, but usually only during the spring and summer. They usually only live about three years, less if they encounter the Big Rat Trap. Occasionally, their tail or other body part will encounter a large sticky trap, and if that occurs, they will gnaw that body part off in favor of freedom.
According to fossil records, their nests have been found thousands of years old, although I doubt they terrorized motorhomes back then. Scientists find them interesting because their nests, also known as “middens”, preserve plant remains, pollen and animal bones. Another reason to dislike the creatures is that they urinate in their dens. Scientists like this however, because their urine acts as a preservative, solidifying the mass over time and thus keeping little nuggets of information for scientists to study later.
So, why did I call my child a packrat? What is the similarity? Although some days it might be tempting, I do not trap my kids in big traps. My kids don’t have long bushy tails either. However, they are both known to collect objects and materials, especially small, shiny objects. They also both hoard rocks and sticks. Packrats, however, will use their urine and feces to bind the materials together into a central section. They will then fortify their nests with additional material like rocks and dog droppings. Thankfully I can say with some confidence, my children do not!