So I decided to pick up a pair of rats today to see if I can successfully breed them and to determine how much time they will take up. I know keeping rats is time consuming, but I'm having trouble understanding how much worse it could be than my dog or my cat or even my geckos. I did recently take on a lot more responsibility to my local herp society as I became co-vice president but I thought I would give it a shot. So far I love the little guys. I got small rats so I had time to adjust to them and them to me before they started having babies. They're so cute and fuzzy, I just wish they would stop pooping on me.

So for starters here is the cage I picked up. I think the bars are close enough together that the babies won't be able to get out.


And here are the rats.
The darker one is the male and light one is the female. They were raised as feeders but they are super friendly thanks the to the store owner's little girl. She takes them out and plays with them all the time. I let her name them and she decided to call them Chocolate and Vanilla which is just so cute. ^_^












Chocolate is a calmer than Vanilla when held but they are both so cute.

I do have a question that maybe someone can help me out with. They were raised in a rack and aren't used to the multi-level open cage so they don't seem to know what to do. If I put them up top near the food they will still be up there an hour later when I got to check on them. I get that they are scared and it's a new place (the bath I gave them as soon as we got home didn't help any either), but will they eventually realize that the food and water are on different levels? I tried to show them how to go up and down the ramps, but they don't seem inclined to do it on their own.