Coral has always had a keen interest in rodents from a very young age and eventually got her first fancy rat in 1996. In that time she has also had experience keeping hamsters, guinea pigs and mice also.
It was on her way to work one day, in Hatton Garden London that Coral first saw a poster with a giant rat on it encouraging people to visit a museum to learn about how these amazing animals were helping in the war effort.
After researching and learning about the HeroRATs and discovering pouched rats were also being kept as pets Coral started searching for a breeder in the UK. In the beginning nothing came up in any searches especially as most websites that mentioned them as pets were from the U.S.
It wasn’t until 2009 when she discovered UKpouchies website. After many talks with UKpouchies founder Lesley, Coral welcomed Peter Pouchie into her home and it was Peter that helped Coral gain a lot of her early experience as a pouched rat keeper.
Since then Coral has been keeping these beautiful creatures for many years, with Tora coming into her life as Coral contiuned caring for her after Lesley made the move to the U.S. and was unable to take her with her.
Coral is an active member of UKpouchies and has made several appearances at pet shows across the UK with her pouched rats and helps on other rat groups with sharing her knowledge into the care of both fancy rats and pouched rats.
As well as all this, Coral enjoys spending her spare time doing her other love of textile art including needle point and needle felt.
