Look at My Lovely Rats!
Welcome to my new site all about the little whiskery fellas.
Stripe, Rocky, Pip and Shy-Shy at 6 weeks old.
This site is dedicated to my four naughty bucks: Rocky, Stripe, Pip and Shy-Shy. They arrived home on Saturday the 5th May 2007, very timid and freaked out at their new surroundings and being away from mum for the first time. We found them in a rescue centre where they had been born unexpectedly from a very young and shy doe.
Shy-Shy snuggled up to Pip.
Three days later, the boys are still skittish when we walk into the room, but soon settle down, and since I have been trying the “enforced socialisation” method, they have been a little more relaxed with us, and Rocky the bravest (and we think the boss) will come up to the bars of the cage and have a good sniff at my nose! Enforced socialisation is not as bad as it sounds! It just means that you handle your rat and let him walk up to your shoulder or under your shirt and periodically lift him gently into your hands, but keep him in direct contact with you for twenty minutes. Don’t let him run off, or he will get more stressed out when you try and retrieve him. I found that for my most nervous ratty, Shy-Shy, who hates to be picked up, I had to keep him inside my jacket, let him calm down, then every once in a while lift him gently with one hand and let him down again. This way he will (hopefully!) gradually learn to trust me and get used to being picked up in an environment he feels safe in.
Rocky looks lost in his huge cage.
A lot of well-respected fancy rat breeders handle rat kittens from birth, and unlike other rodents, mother rats very rarely harm their babies when they have been handled. In fact it is probably better for them if they get used to human contact from at least 3 weeks old, the earlier the better, because then they will be less stressed by human hands later on (which to a little frightened rat look like big predators swooping down toward them!).
7th May 2007
Today my rats have been mostly eating slices of banana and broken up Weetabix!