My Lovely Rats

All the rats have been to the vet again (sigh) with sneezing and porphyrin around their eyes and noses. He prescribed 10 days of Baytril again, and hopefully that will be long enough to get rid of the Myco for good.

Today my three children all had a go at feeding the rats with a spoon. I put a blanket across each of the girls’ legs and encouraged their rats (each has her favourite) onto their laps. This resulted in lots of food spilt everywhere, giggles and squeals of delight from the girls, and four well-fed, but not too fazed ratties! In fact, the rats were so keen to explore my daughters that they tended to do it three at a time, which was a little too much for my eldest, because she thought they were going to nibble her feet!

Rocky finds a friend

For some reason Rocky especially has a fascination with my feet and whenever he gets the chance he has a little nibble! All of my rats tend to put their teeth around my fingers now and again, but do not bite. I’m not sure why they do this and I hope it doesn’t mean they are going to bite. Pip (the shyest rat) bit me once (just a tiny nip) when I tried to pick him up out of his bed. I think he was just being defensive, so since then I coax him out with food and then pick him up. The others sit still for me to lift them now, and will stay in my hands for a little while, before struggling to get free and explore.

Stripe looking for someone to play with

There is a rule in my house regarding the rats: to never put fingers through the cage bars, as a rat’s sense of smell is very good, and they might mistake your finger for a strip of pizza, or stick of carrot!

Today my rats have been mostly eating cooked pasta with garlic and herbs.

Tags: Handling and Taming by admin
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During their playtime today I gave the rats a hard-boiled egg to see what they would do. I put a small nick in it to give them a head start. Ten minutes later the egg was rolling around on the laminate floor with four rats chasing it! Rocky, the big macho rat tried to run away with it in his mouth, but I was very mean and made him share it with the other boys!

“What heck’s this?” “Dunno. It smell funny”

After getting very hyperactive, as young ratties do, Rocky (who always starts fights) picked a fight with Stripe. Stripe is a bit smaller than Rocky, but is not intimidated by him at all. In fact he defended himself by making an impressive ninja high leap attack, which Rocky had to block with his tiny paws! Here’s the two of them throwing their weight around:

“Ha-haa! I has you in arm-lock!”

“I givin you a kickin!”

“Torrrrpedoooo!”

During rats’ adolescence (3 to 8 months) the males will fight to establish dominance within the group, or pair. They will box or pin their opponent down, and ‘power groom’ one another. As long as there are no injuries you should leave them to it, but if you see more than a little scratch on your rat, it might be advisable to separate the guilt party, and seek the vet’s advice. Sometimes rats are given a drug called Tardak which inhibits the hormones which can make your rat more aggressive towards it’s cage-mates. Sometimes a vet will suggest castration for a male rat, if he is particularly aggressive. Within a few weeks after this operation, he is usually a lot calmer, but it is an invasive procedure and should only be a last resort, in my opinion.

Stripe looking totally innocent

We got our first rat Ratty and after about three weeks realised that he desperately needed some company. So we went back to the pet shop to see if one of his brothers was still there, and came home with Ratty’s brother, who we called Ruby. Well, not knowing what we do now about rats, we put Ruby into Ratty’s cage. We assumed that the two brothers would remember each other, but Ratty obviously decided that Ruby was an outsider and shouldn’t be in his territory! There was a lot of raised fur and noise and posturing, and Ratty would not let Ruby anywhere near the food bowl. This is a natural territorial instinct, but to us it looked like Ratty was being a bully. Both of the rats were obviously scared witless at each other, so perhaps wrongly, we separated them, and gave each his own room to run around in. In hindsight, I would have tried to socialise them slowly, but we didn’t have a clue about how to do that at the time. The rat books I had at the time were really rubbish and brief, but thankfully there is so much more information now on the net.

Pip, Stripe, Shy-Shy and Rocky have little scraps and skirmishes quite often, but they always snuggle up to each other in the end, and seem to get on really well.

Today my rats have been mostly eating sliced baby sweetcorn.

Tags: Behaviour by admin
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Oh dear, Shy-Shy was sneezing again. I made another appointment for him at the vets’. He may be one of those ratties that is prone to Myco infections. The vet prescribed seven days of Baytril (0.1 ml a day). The dose your rat gets depends on his size. Average dose for an adult female rat is approx. 0.2ml and an adult male might get about 0.25 to 0.3mls.

This time I took Shy-Shy to the vets on his own in a plastic carrier tank. The poor thing was petrified because there were a couple of load yappy dogs there. I tried to console him by stroking him gently, but made a mental note to bring his brothers as company next time. Rats seem to be far less threatened when they have their cage mates to snuggle up to - or hide under as Pip does!

The vet picked Shy-Shy up by the scruff of the neck to show me how to administer the Baytril via a small syringe. Shy-Shy didn’t struggle but I think he was too scared to move, but anyway, it didn’t look very comfortable to me and I suspect that holding a rat in this way probably hurts it a little. I thought Shy-Shy would prefer the Baytril-in-yummy-yoghurt method better!

Shy-Shy feigns illness then sneaks off with banana chunk

I have since found much better ways to hold your poorly rat, if he refuses to eat, and you need to get the medicine in him. One easy way is to hold your rat firmly wrapped in a towel, so that his movement is restricted.

Today my rats are mostly eating apple slices.

Tags: Health by admin
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Since giving Shy-Shy his medicine disguised in soft food, he is much more relaxed and friendly around me, so I’ve tried offering the other three rats food soft food from a spoon. I started with yoghurt (the fruity kind with no bits - because this is what my kids eat), and the rats love it. At first they would only come to the door of their cage to take the food from me, but after only a few days Stripe and Rocky were eating the food on my lap. Pip is still nervous, but I’m sure he’ll come round once he realises I’m the treat-lady!

Shy-Shy discovers an orange pointy thing

Pip, Stripe, Rocky and Shy-Shy’s Favourite Treats:

Scrambled Egg (A firm favourite, but messy)

Sweetcorn (They can’t resist this!)

Sunflower Seeds ( Not too many)

Yoghurt (Served on a teaspoon on owner’s lap!)

Egg Custard Baby Food (Too tempting for the shyest rat to miss!)

Cheesy Vegetables Baby Food (I found this great to hide medicine in)

Mashed Banana in Lactose-Free Baby Milk (Or soya baby milk is supposed to be OK for young growing rats, and good for poorly rats)

Pip gets his carrot and eats it

Today my rats have been mostly eating cornflakes.

Tags: Food and Treats, Handling and Taming by admin
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Shy-Shy seems to be clear of his myco infection at last. The boys have grown a lot over the last few weeks and are looking more like feisty teenagers than fluffy babies. Their fur is more coarse and shiny (females have softer, sleeker fur than males and tend to be smaller).

Ten week old scary beasts!

I cleaned the rats’ cage out today while they slept in their carrier tank. They will be too big for it soon. When they finally got back in their home, they explored it with great gusto and excitement! I always make slight variations in the cage layout, because fancy rats are clever and seem to love to explore new things. I always put some nice tasty treats in there too to give them something inviting to do - eating (a rat’s favourite pastime!)

Ferplast Furet Extra Large cage. Roomy!

There are plenty of cages on the market for rats, and alot of breeders use large aviary-type cages. You definitely need a good-sized cage for rats, because they are very active and need plenty of stimulus (ie hammocks, tubes, ropes, ladders etc). I have a Ferplast Furet Extra Large ferret cage - it’s huge and has ample space for four male rats. You need to be careful of bar-spacing though when you are considering buying a ferret cage. Usually the spacing is far too wide (about 2.5cm) for baby rats or small adult female rats. However, for larger females or grown male rats they are wonderfully spacious. The Ferplast Furet E L has a much narrower bar-spacing - about 1.7cm which was perfectly fine for my male rats from 6 weeks old. It is so large I had to fill it with 3 corner shelves, a large ‘acroplatform’ from ‘Acrorats’ (a superb on-line shop selling made-to-measure sturdy hammocks, platforms etc.), hammocks and tubes etc. The rats love it! There are two large doors, so it’s easy enough to clean (especially if you’ve got orangutan long arms like me!). The only trouble I’ve had with the cage was that when the rats were more timid, it was difficult to get them out of it! If I got baby rats again (a distinct possibility!) I would get a smaller ‘nursery’ cage to start with (with bar spacing 1.5cm or less).

Today my rats have been mostly eating broccoli and porridge oats.

Tags: Toys and Games, Housing by admin
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