pet rats..

[ADEE]

how many do you have? nonbreeding rats that just hang out as pets? i currently have 9 and thinking of bringing the group number down.. .to a more managable number. right now they are all living in a large martins (Rudd) cage together and there are a few rats that we have are simply not as friendly..one in fact has been biting my hubby lately and obviously thats a huge no-no in our house.. im thinking less rats, less to clean, more attention per rat. does that make me a mean owner to thin out a group of less friendly rats to give more attention to the good rats? i do have a great place for them to go.. not to be food

[Argentra]

I'm trying to breed mice, not rats since two of my three snakes are corns... but I do have three little ratty girls as pets. The two larger ones are sweeties, especially my older golden agouti. The manx down-under, however, is a bit of a brat. You have to be careful not to reach in for anything in front of her or she'll lunge for you. I think it's that whole 'small dog' syndrome in a rat.

[ADEE]

hmm... well we dont have anything that eats rats here anyway, they have been pets for our family, but the number got so high so fast (we couldnt resist those cutie faces) that things got out of hand. now were up to 9 and simply dont have time for them all. i have one male we actually even had neutered so he could live with the girls, my husband bought him to breed so we could breed/sell hairless rats and because we didnt know his backround and we knew we just simply couldnt make money that way we had him fixed (a $9.99 rat became $59.99 over night) so he would of course stay.. i just want to bring the number down and rehome the girls that simply arent as friendly, bite us, exc.. just morally wanted to know if it was a mean heartless thing to do, even though i have great homes set up for them.

[littleindiangirl]

Your adopting out rats, whats wrong with that?

In the rat behaivor link at the bottom of my signature, this person did a study on rat colors and temperaments. They say that rats that have been breed for temperament have more white on them. They also say that the black rat is nicer than an agouti. And that fawns are susceptable to depression and alcoholism. (its true, read it lol). So, just curious, in your experience, which ones are the nicest?

[ADEE]

wow.. that is interesting.. well the ones we adopted out were one augi hooded and the other was a augi self. we also rehomed a naked hooded baby that i hand fed from day one, her sister and two brothers were all very healthy, all adopted out now.. their mother who i bought the day she had her babies still live with me.

the nicest in our group is my husbands favorite, one we adopted ourselves. shes a creme hooded. another nicest rat is our siamese and blue verigated female. the others we have is one blue who is very shy and two nakeds.. one neutered male and one female, they arent friendly like the blue verigated (who has a head marking and lots of white), siamese and creme hooded but tollerate being held.. tollerate used lightly cause they would much rather hang out in their cage and eat... that does pretty much comply with what you said!!!

[frankykeno]

It's never wrong to make clear, informed decisions about just what you can and cannot handle with your pets. You will be happier and the rats will get the attention a pet rat is used to....a win win in my book hon.

Funny about that study. I certainly don't pretend to be all knowing about temperment and coat colors but my experience is directly opposite from what you are saying that study found (I'll make time to read it fully later today). Every self black I've ever raised and kept has been a bit on the nasty side temperment wise, every agouti has been a lovely rat with good production litter wise and a nice, stable temperment. I currently have no self black rats anymore. My agouti's are Charlie, an agouti male and Gracie and Betsy ButtPatch, agouti and white hooded (mismarked though as far as anyone can ID their odd markings for me....funny they are almost identically marked though totally unrelated LOL).

I will say I'm less than impressed with minks. I currently have two females, Gabby and Freda who are just way overly hyper and difficult to deal with. I had another Patches who wasn't much different though a tad calmer. My only mink that I really like to work with is Dee, our mink dumbo...she's a very nice rat.

All of ours that are retired are considered pets. They still live within the colony as that is their social group and they still have their little "jobs", tending the maturing group of young rats destined to be future breeders, keeping other oldster rats company, even running herd on a group of weanling feeders if they need the calming influence of a mature rat of the same gender.

[ADEE]

we did adopt out three last night... the one naked is lunas last baby to leave, the person who got her also has her sister and shes very excited to have them both. especially knowing i hand raised them from day one. i was so pleased all those babies made it and now have nice homes. our two augi girls also got homed together so that worked out nicely. were down to 6 now and i think its going to be much easier. the six we have i wouldnt consider rehoming at this point..

[littleindiangirl]

Well thats good to hear! Spreading the addiction aren't ya? lol

[SatanicIntention]

I currently have around 25, plus 4 girls in quarantine that were just rescued about 2 weekends ago. Either 3 or all 4 girls are pregnant, in various stages. Yay.. Sure wish I could have gotten them spayed, but we have the resources to rehome all of the babies, so it should be ok.

Temperment, I think, depends on how the rat was raised and what its background is. I've raised alot of pet store rats into wonderful, lovey, mooshy kids. Some rats from breeders seem more apt to be nervous, high strung, temperment can be iffy(socialization with other rats), and have been more probe to illness/cancer/poor immune systems. It was likely the breeder though, as one of my other breeder rats has never had any health problems whatsoever, he just doesn't get along with the boys most of the time.

Ive never had problems with black selfs or minks, I have both. They are both very calm, kissy things and could care less about being held, played with, etc. I have tons of black hoodeds and they all vary in temperment from nervous to wet floppy sock-like rat.

[Argentra]

My gold agouti is the sweetest most lovable rat I've ever owned...she's my baby. The pet store blue hooded I had a while back was nice, but very skittish. Now, the youngsters are a mink down-under with a reddish coat and a mink/manx(tailless) down-under brown hooded. The tailless is a nippy little devil, and the other mink is nervous but gentle enough as long as her half sister isn't around.