Rat Help?

[fudgesicle]

Hey. My mom seems to think that rats are smelly and biting creatures, and from what I have read they are not. I really want a rat, and I'd pay all expenses, but my mom still is shakey. She's worked at the 3 pet stores and a pound, and she had to clean their cages, and she complains they smell. I comeback with the fact that stored rats are never treated properly, and at the pound they were probably scared and thats why they bit. I would get a female so it wouldn't mark and she STILL won't fully agree. She's almost agreeing, but I wanna get both of her feet on the agreeing side. I haven't had my own pet since my last 3 hamsters, 2 years ago.

She says I should make a better presentation. I just wanted to know, from a rat-owners point of view, the pro's and cons of pet rats?

I hear they are really intelligent and loving animals.

[Suki Wingy]

I have never personally owned a rat but my dad breed them off and on for the last 20 years or so. I think as long as you clean them often enough they should be fine. Most of my dad's rats loved to play with eachother on the plastic wheel things, flipping eachother over however some just choose to sleep in them. They were like little tiny dogs! He started out breeding them to have free snake food, but the mothers were so good and sweet that he now feeds frozen food, but he got three as pets a few years ago because he missed them. He has given them all away to friends because of lack of time with a baby, because he also has 6 snakes and two cats. We would take the male, Rocky, and the tame female, Lilly, and put them on our shoulders to sleep curled up in our hair while we watched tv. They were going to buy Rocky a harness to walk him around the house. In all my time with rats, not one has beet me. Hamsters, however, tend to bite a lot more, and mostly out of curiosity.

[aki]

We have two rats and have had them since they were young. The shop we got them from said they will tend to not bite if they kinda grow up with you. The only time they bite is if you stick your fingers through the cage bars because they thinl you are giving them food. Otherwise they are very sweet and give you lots of kisses.

[kittycats_delight]

I had a rattie a few years ago. A female that was as sweet as pie. She never ever bit. Not even the dog or cat. She loved everyone and everything. I had had her since she was a baby. She would give kisses and anytime you would pass her cage she would reach out her little paw and grab for you to pet her or pick her up. I had always been weary of rats until her. Now I would get another one in a heartbeat but my hubby doesn't like them and my girls (cats) would go mad trying to get to her. For me I would want another female because the experience I had with her was amazing.

[DJFyrewolf36]

Rats are one of the sweetest creatures you could ever be owned by (you don't own a rat, they own you!). I've had rats for quite a number of years. With proper cage care, they aren't smelly. Rats are really clean animals. My rat, Cleo is almost obsessive compulsive when it comes to being clean! Store rats tend to smell worse because they are in really cramped quarters and realistically the cages don't get the attention they need just because there isn't time for it.

Rats for the most part aren't biters. Cleo (my rat baby) will defend herself if the cats are being obnoxious but she has never bitten me or anyone else. I had one female that was really skittish and was quick to bite but she was the runt of the litter and was always picked on. With gentle handling and patience, she became a lot more mellow. Rats are creatures with boundries (they are really intelegent after all) and of course there will be some that require work in order to become sociable. The trick is to start young and to make sure you handle them frequently. A single rat will bond with people a lot easier than if you had multiple rats, as they tend to bond with each other.

There is a downside of course. Rats don't live very long, and their intelegence makes it very easy to bond with them. It hurt quite a bit each time I lost a rat due to old age. I've noticed that rats are prone to resporatory infections (at least in my local area, I'm not sure about other places but the weather here is hard on them). Think about the ammount of time you have to dedicate to a rats care. They are social creatures, and if they arent handled frequently, they could turn into real pains. If you don't plan on having your rat out for extended periods of time, concider getting two. Two females is the best. Males can be housed together, but I've noticed that unless they've grown up together, they tend to fight once they get older. Of course, don't house a male and a female together in the same cage. Having a male and a female seperated with supervised play time works pretty well but again you have to have the time to let them out to play. (my roomate has a male rat, Skyre and he and Cleo do like each other) Two females though, might still not work out as some rats like to have a home to themselves.

I hope I gave you some useful information! There are a lot of good rat websites out there. Go to google.com and search for Rat Care. There is a lot of pages dedicated to dispelling the myths about rats.

Good luck!

[fudgesicle]

Thanks a bunch, all of you guys. The picture of two rats is adorable<3. My mom finally gave in too. We're going to the pound on Thursday, (yeah they have some rats.) just to look the first time, and see if this is what I really want. (Trust me, it is.)

[DJFyrewolf36]

Its great you are willing to adopt a rescue rat. Sometimes they can be hard to work with but it's rewarding to know you saved a life.

Skyre is a rescue rat. Someone dumped him off at the pet store where I worked because he was "too big and scary"