some rat questions

LOL! mine "melts" when i do that too! you know the funny thing, i used to be scared of rats!

I was never scared of them.. I don't 'get' being scared of rats.. mice though, I'm always afraid they're going to bite me!

LOL, shelby. we've done it again! i guess we just like hijacking my threads.

Eh, it still has to do with rats.

to keep rodents from chewing you can give them things to keep them occupied. I usually raise my rats with a running wheel available so they don't look for other things to do. I don't have the smaller mice very long as they are fed off to the smaller snakes but little hides like the cardboard toilete paper rolls work wonders for another "distraction from things like chewing. If they are chewing most likely they are bored...so give them something to do.

I give mine paper towel tubes to chew on too. Rodents don't chew because they are bored, they chew to keep their teeth ground down.. they also will look for a place to escape.

Actually rodents in captivity WILL chew because they are bored...and yes the goal usually being to escape. Keeping their teeth ground down is a given and again leads back to what you have available to them to do such natural tasks. If your not feeding foods that will help keep the teeth warn or other "objects" for them to naw on then ya I can see why you'd end up with holes in your tubs.

Point being if you are setup correctly you can raise colonies of rats and mice in sterolite/rubbermaid tubs with no problems...I've been successfull for years.

Well, I feed mine crunchy things (raw pasta/dog food) and I give them things to chew on, and I still have holes in my tubs. They sometimes start the holes from ventilation holes I drilled in the sides, but they even start the holes by themselves.

Let's put it this way.. they're capable of chewing through sterilite/rubbermaid plastic!

i finally went to walmart and got a 3 tub shelf. i'm gonna get another rat for a breeder on wednesday.

BTW, do you guys think you could tell if my rat is a boy/girl from a pic of its underside? it's only 54g's

Shelby, that brings up a good point with vent holes. When I used vent holes on the sides of the actual tub I had to make sure I put them up high where the rodents couldn't reach them. I don't use any holes in the actual tubs now as the top is nearly all open. I cut out the whole center of the tub lids and fasten the mesh in place of it so the lid still snaps down (but I also use clasps) but has free flowing ventilation.

mr p: you should be able to distinquish between males and females around 4ish weeks give or take a few days of development.