pet rats..

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

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. :)

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.

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?

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!!!

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.

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..

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

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. :)

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.

well aside from the cleaning, smell, exc things are *easier*..rats arent destroying their toys as fast, actually walking out of the cage to greet us but theres a problem that i cant ignore anymore.. and claritin isnt cutting it.... my allergies have been acting up (since rats moved in really) and last night was cleaning night (Wash everything including the rats, bedding change, exc) and my God i felt like some one ran me over with a mack truck! My eyes were all red, puffy and watering like crazy and i still have the sniffles this morning. its crazy, when im at work im fine.. i go home and get all stuffy, eyes watering, exc its a mess.. and forget it, when i hold them it gets even worse.. in the five years we have had reptiles ive never had an allergy to anything, get rats and its all over. what the heck is up with that?! now mind you... aside from them i have zero allergies to anything! i have had horses, dogs, cats for years..this is the first time we have had rats as pets... we have had no changes since they moved in, we dont use scented anything (no carpet dust, laundry detergent, not even candles anymore exc)

That doesn't sound very good. What bedding are you using for them? Are you allergic to that, or do you believe it is the rats your allergic to?

I would try Benadryl or chlorpheniramine before claritin. Benadryl is just a stronger antihistamine.

It would also help alot to wash your arms with soap after playing with them. Most people that are allergic to them, are allergic to the nail scratches and the urine, so washing might help some :)

becky, im a clean freak.. honestly. i use dawn dish soap to wash up and then i use the antibacterial stuff too, i use that stuff all day long, on me and the kids.. its seriously an addiction.

as for washing after holding them.. i get all flared up just from being in our condo for an hour or two. im sure its partly due to the fact we have a small place and their "scent" or whatever is causing the flare ups is everywhere in the house.. not like being in a 5+ bedroom house where a large rat cage is over looked like a peice of furniture.

i use yesterdays news bedding for them.. we had been using aspen (same as when we had the snakes) but thought the dust was bothering me.. thats when we switched to the yesterdays news.. we have used it in the past for our cats so its not that. :taz: im thinking its more the rats than the scratches and urine... considering it happens even if i dont actually touch the cage or rats.

Well, I say go ahead with Becky's advice, but it does sound like you are allergic to them.v :(

Putting some more fatty acids in their diet will help the excess dander.

Try putting either whole or ground flax seed in their mix(or just put it in baby cereal or something a few times a week), or some flax seed oil(or EVOO) on bread. It will help keep down the amount of danger they produce(especially the nekkids as they always have dry skin).

Other than a daily regimen of benadryl, I really don't know.. Bio-Hazard suit? ;)

:( pooey.. thats what i had thought. ill talk to hubby about adding the extras to their diet and see what happens, i hate having to take meds.. truly! i didnt even take pain killers after my kids were born, the spinal wore off after surgery and that was it.

Maybe look into some sort of air purifier???? I have only looked into them a little, but they are supposed to help remove stuff from the air like pet dander. Someone posted a DIY one here recently, I will have to look for the link. I would just watch the ionizing ones though. Like I said I haven't looked into them that much, but I believe the ionizing ones create ozone, which can be harmful if too much ozone is created, even though most claim that they don't produce a whole lot, but not sure how much would be harmful to your animals. Just thought I would throw out another idea for you.:)

thank you pamela for the suggestion..

im going to talk to my husband tonight about what he thinks we should do. aside from them being our pets, a few raised from babies they arent animals we *need* to feed other animals. they really have become our little pets. I just dont know how worth it, it is to live with them having to do so many things and spend more money to live with an allergy when there are lots of wonderful pets out there that wouldnt require an air purifier, extra supplements, meds, exc. I have been speaking with a friend who has agreed to take the group for awhile and see what happens in terms of allergies lessoning, thats a possibility too.

The ones that work on ionizing the air do create oxone, but it has been thoroughly tested and the amount of ozone is not harmful. The only noticeable thing is you can smell the ozone, and most ionizers have attachments that rid the ozone smell. (They don't create as much ozone as some mongers claim)
I have the Ionic breeze for my room, just to help with Chris's allergies, and it does it's job. If your thinking about getting rid of smells, go for one that has a hepa filter and a carbon filter. The carbon is the only way to absorb the smell. Even if the machine costs 1000$ with top of the line hepa, it won't absorb odor effectively.

If you want extreme air purification, get a hepa filter air purifier. Honeywell is mid range, that's usually a good one to go for. You can try an air-washer, that literally washes the air and acts as a humidifier at the same time. (I used to work at Bed bath and beyond, and they made us take classes to learn the selling points of our items.)