Originally posted by Lady's Human
http://www.provet.co.uk/health/diseases/rabies.htm

every rabies web link I found listed carriers as ALL Mammals, including rodents.
Yes, they can CARRY it, however the chances of contracting it from a rodent is extremely, extremely rare. If rodents are infected with rabies they usually die before they can trasmit it because they are too little and fragile to handle the disease compared to a rabid cow or dog.

Rodents/small mammals:
Providers are often asked about the risks associated with small wild mammals -- such as rats, mice, squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits and hares. Rodent bites are common, so rodents are often tested for rabies in the United States. Despite the large number of rodents examined, it is exceedingly uncommon for one to be infected with rabies virus. It has been postulated that these animals are so small that they are unlikely to survive an attack of a larger rabid animal (such as a raccoon, skunk, or fox). No rabid rodents have ever been identified in Washington. Furthermore, although there have been several case reports of humans infected by rabid rodents in other countries, no transmission of rabies from a rodent to a human (or any other mammal) has ever been documented in the United States2.
http://healthlinks.washington.edu/nw...s/animals.html

Very few rats infected with rabies have ever been found in the United States. Winkler (1973) reviewed the literature on rodent rabies in the United States. He found that during the 18-year period of 1953 and 1970, a small number of rabid rats (39 rats) were found in the United States. The numbers were extremely small: only 11 rabid rats were found in the U.S. during the three year period of 1953-1955. The number of rabid rats declined during the period of time covered by the review, and by the three year period of 1968-1970 only 2 rats were found to be rabid. This decline in the number of rabid rats is probably due to an improvement in diagnostic techniques which led to fewer false positives.

In other countries, no rats were found to be infected with rabies in surveys of wild rat populations in Sri Lanka (Patabendige and Wimalaratne 2003), Poland (Wincewicz 2002), and Bangkok, Thailand (Kantakamalakul 2003). In Thailand,, 4.7% of Norway rats (9 rats out of 192) were found to be carrying rabies (Smith et al. 1968).
http://www.ratbehavior.org/WildRatDisease.htm#Rabies


http://www.wvdhhr.org/phs/forms/Rabies_Pamphlet.pdf