Any rat-lovers here?

shoegirl

Li'l Irish wrote:

Or am I the only freak? I'm new to the boards (obviously) and no one seems to share my love of the long-tailed squeaky things.

Anybody else like rats?

Yes. I like them myself but never had one as a pet. A reallly good old friend has had several and I used to regularly rat-sit. She also had another couple of friends who also kept pet rats. They lived in home-made cages and were very nice pets. Highly intelligent too.

Li'l Irish

I've done the home made cage thing and found that while the boys couldn't get out, my slender little girls could. Right now I have mine in a multi-level Ruud tower from Martin's Cages http://www.martinscages.com/products/cages/rat/ and I whole-heartedly recommend them to anyone with any type of small animal. The Ruud is taller than I am. I actually have it seperated into two sections with a grid of wire from a spare cage. The girls are in the top and the boys are in the bottom.

As for comparisons with hamsters, there is no comparison! I've had hamsters that weren't nippy, but they were few and far between. I've had rats for years and I've been bitten twice. Once was a race for a piece of food; the first rat got the food, the losing rat got the finger and the second bite was pulling cage furniture out of the cage to clean it and accidentally dragging my unfortunate Basil with it by one back leg. He bit me to get me to let go and he didn't even break the skin.

Our man in Havana

As a owner of gerbils, rats, chins, hamsters among others I prefer gerbils & rats over hamsters - although I do love my hammies & accept that I will get nipped & nibbled! - The smell is not a huge issue if they are kept clean & tidy etc.

Whiskeytango

Hello Li'l Irish,

No, you are not a freak. Rats are wonderful pets. They are very intelligent, really affectionate and they clean themselves and each other all the time. Blub2k4's comments about them are correct. Rats really seem to love the the attention of people. When I was in my teens I was lucky enough to have 3 horses that I loved and I enjoy my rats as much as I enjoyed my horses. I got my first rats 3 years ago and they both died within the last 2 months, I think this is the biggest problem keeping rats, the short life span. You WILL become very attached to them and when they die it really sucks. It is also important to consider the fact that they are prone to developing tumors.
My last rat died after surgery to remove a tumor from a mammary gland, a surgery that cost $300.00 US. This is hard for some people to justify financially, you pay a few dollars for the animal then have a large bill for medical care. For me there really was not a choice, it would have been like refusing to take proper care of my children. Anyway, good luck with your rats.

Russ.

Blub2k4

I forgot to mention one of the big advantages of keeping male rats is that you are less likely to lose them to cancer. The females suffer from mammary tumours all the time.
The main reason is that all the domesticated rats about basically come from lab stock and they used be bred there for their cancer properties as they are good for research, unfortunately this trait cannot be totally bred out of the domestic pets.

hairyheretic

I don't have any at the moment, but have had 9 over the last 5 years or so. I found they made very good pets.

As it happens, I'm looking to get some more right now. Does anyone know of any pet shops around the south Dublin that have rats in at the moment? Or anyone with a litter looking to home them? Preference would be for a couple of girls.

Blub2k4

Petland on Camden Street, had 2 females about 3 weeks ago, they MAY still have some.
Apart from that I would suggest contacting Bond|007 as they breed and supply a few shops in Dublin, and as far as I am aware they also supply petland.

Our man in Havana

I do supply petland & I have a litter that will be ready to leave here at the weekend, so you can either get some from me direct or wait till they arrive at the shop sometime after monday I guess.

Blub2k4

Bond-007 wrote:

I do supply petland & I have a litter that will be ready to leave here at the weekend, so you can either get some from me direct or wait till they arrive at the shop sometime after monday I guess.

I got one of yours recently and I have to say I can heartily recommend them, he's a lovely little guy and more inquisitive and smarter than the others we have had so far.

hairyheretic

Bond-007 wrote:

I do supply petland & I have a litter that will be ready to leave here at the weekend, so you can either get some from me direct or wait till they arrive at the shop sometime after monday I guess.

I've PMed you.

Our man in Havana

Blub2k4 wrote:

I got one of yours recently and I have to say I can heartily recommend them, he's a lovely little guy and more inquisitive and smarter than the others we have had so far.

What colour did you get? is he a dumbo or normal eared?

Blub2k4

He's a dumbo alright, pretty close to an agouti, if not agouti, one of the batch from petland about 3 weeks ago, there were two females and a male.
beautiful little animal.

Our man in Havana

Ahh the colour I call chocolate - looks like a cup of hot chocoalte to me - with a white belly I have a few more in the latest litter like that & some hooded one too.

Blub2k4

Bond-007 wrote:

Ahh the colour I call chocolate - looks like a cup of hot chocoalte to me - with a white belly I have a few more in the latest litter like that & some hooded one too.

Yeah I suppose chocolate would be accurate, the Canadian rat loving friends went a bit OTT with their description and reckon he's a Mink Irish Berkshire, to be honest I find that level of dissection of what is rattus norwegicus differentiated by colour a bit embarrassing from a biologists point of view, chocolate is much more succinct and less pretentious.

This guy is a vertical climber, a real daredevil, he will climb straight up me once I get near him on the sofa, he is the only guy so far to make it to the tops of our heads all by himself.

Kastro

i have me a Mink Irish Berkshire - Dumbo.. hes the cutest little fecker.. mates of mine brought him down to me from dublin.. im livin i waterford atm. cudnt get rats here at all when i wanted one. he was reallly good to handle and loves his exploration and climbing.. think he was gotten on camden st.. anyways.. he seemed a bit lonley, i got him a little friend, bigger cage and a bunch of toys an stuff.. they always do their mess fighting - rolling around jumping on each other.. i ended up calling my rat "rat" for the simplicity.. the other rat is my gf's.. she still dosent have a name for it 3weeks later... yea so as i was saying my rat is dead friendly and didnt mind being picked up. then when the new fella came along.. (oh yea their both male) mine kinda fights to get away when im goin to lift him up.. he wont simply run up my sleave no more and the other one has bin scared ****less of humans since day one. if i go near the cage rat looks for the attention but the other one (thinkin of calling it moxie at this stage) just hides in its house. it does take food from my hand but i just cant figure it out. i leave the cage open so they can run around, they always find their way back in, granted i keep an eye on em as well..
any good sites as to making friends with rats
anyways.. heres a few pics.

Rat:






Moxie hiding..:

gypsygirl

Li'l Irish wrote:

Or am I the only freak? I'm new to the boards (obviously) and no one seems to share my love of the long-tailed squeaky things.

I have four rats at the moment, two albino sisters named Briar and Rose, a very sleepy but quite clever black and white male named Miyamoto Musashi, and a black capped baby boy who knows exactly how cute he is named Yagyu Jubei.

( I know, epic peoms and samurai, what a combination. )

Anybody else like rats?

My Mother loves Rats, we had them as pets when I was a kid along with ferrets and dogs and cats; Rats are extremely clever, Mums favorite was a male called Amadeus (after Motzart) he danced on her shoulder whenever she played music, gave many a visitor quite a start seeing a Rat on my Mums shoulder when she answered the door, Amadeus loved when Mum was ironing, he'd run all over the clothes while she tried to iron them and dive into her pockets 'cos he knew she kept treats in there. I don't have any rats at present 'cos I have a very predatory cat but in the future I definitly will. Rats are terrific pets and soo entertaining.