Anyone else have pet rats?

looby1975

Yeah ours love dried pasta too. I've found some chew sticks from pets at home that are wood with a herb filling in the middle that they go mad for and it's helped massively with their teeth.

GwylimT

We used to have them, one escaped one day and when we tracked her down she was a lump under the carpet, she has chewed her way under! After that she only had free time in the dining room as it was tiled and didn't have any wires hanging around.

giantmutantbroccoli

I give mine cuttlefish, antler dog chews and bones. They love them! That said, you really don't need to buy them anything special to chew on. They naturally grind their teeth together (it's called bruxing) to wear them down. Even a rat fed on a soft mash will maintain healthy teeth as long as their teeth are aligned properly. They can have problems with overgrowth as a result of accident or injury- my old rat Penny had an abcess on her head that pushed her jaw out of alignment and I ended up having to clip her teeth on a weekly basis- but if they're not having any problems I wouldn't worry about it!


The National Fancy Rat Society is a great place to find info about caring for your rats:
Www.nfrs.org


I buy most of my food etc from https://www.ratrations.com

Bunny82

Yup, we have 8 of them. They're brilliant but cost a small fortune whenever something goes wrong with them (which , sadly, is quite a lot).

Rats in general are terrible chewers so having a good stockpile of bedding and hammocks is a must. I usually make my own but another cheap idea is Asda's value tea towels just slung across the cage with some paperclips. You shouldn't have to worry about keeping their teeth the correct length because they do that themselves, but having something available for them to have a nibble on is a good idea. I can't remember off the top of my head what tree wood is safe for them but the majority of the fruit trees are.

Rawhide is a bad idea as it goes a funny consistency when wet and poses a choking hazard and be careful of feeding excess pasta as they can get very fat very quickly on it!

A very good forum for more info and ratty chat is fancyratsforum.co.uk

meritaten

I really do like rats, and my DD (who has the degue) used to have a pair of rats. and I found them fascinating - my OH has a bit of a phobia so I cant have any.
DDs rats were funny, She was a bit of a homebody, forever fussing about rearranging beds etc! but she seemed to love music, love to dance! stand on her hind legs and move to the music!!!! HE was very outgoing, loved visitors - but a bit lightfingered, he would nick anything a visitor brought in if it wasn't in their pockets or handbags! car keys, lighters, ciggys - he carted it back to his home! any small item which went missing could usually be found hidden in his bed! funnily enough he didn't pinch any of the family belongings - just the visitors! Both of them loved to be handled, loved to 'play' with people and were very affectionate. and very very clean in their habits. they had a large tin can in their cage which was their 'toilet', and they expected it to be cleaned every day! or a lot of indignant squeeking resulted!