I'm getting 2 rats soon!! Both females!! Anyone here have rats?

Hello! If you're interested in rats, this thread might be of interest to you: Rodents...Hate or Like

What made you decide to get rats, Moosey? Have you ever had one before? Tell us more about how you made this decision. That's not one of the typical pets you hear about (although, I do see them in the pet store sometimes).

Do you have names picked out for them?

I've had mice and a gerbil before, but I've always wanted rats. They're so cute, and cudily; incredibly smart! There's rat basketball and rat olympics. I have names already; Columbia and Magenta, from a certain movie I shall not name.

Strangely enough, I wanted a rat for a pet when I was younger, but my dad nixed that idea. He HATED rats. I vaguely remember a movie from the '70's called "Ben". It was pretty much a horror movie, but the head rat was named Ben and was given to be a loyal pet, I think. Anyway, Michael Jackson's song "Ben" was the title song. I've always thought rats could be cool pets.

I've recently seen the new version of Willard(Ben was a sequal to this). This guy trains rats to destroy, them kill his boss, but they get out of control because Ben was the leader rat. Weird, but how should I put this . . . interesting movie.

rats are cool.

My brother had a rat a couple of years ago and he named it Arnold Schwarzenegger
(no comments on that one )
Arnie was really cool, and I loved to carry him around in my sleeve.

I am thinking about getting a rat myself. I think they are interesting animals, and as it was mentioned before in this thread, they are really smart.

Has any one seen the movie 1984? There was a really scary rat-scene in it...

No, never seen 1984. I think I'm getting rats too. If I can con my mom into it.

I keep 5 rats as pets myself.All were brought home at my request by my wife from Sydney Uni,just before they were gassed.Having 5 rats seems to be better for me than having just 1.It gives them all company and fellow ratties to play around with and keeps them from getting too bored.I change their large outdoors cage around every week and it brings me happiness to see them exploring the new layout.My ratties enjoy Anzac cookies a few times a week as a treat and live mostly on a special rat food mix from the uni.As they are albinos I have to keep their cage covered during the day and they sleep during this time.They are very tame and sometimes I bring my favorite [zanzibar]into the house and let him run around for a night or 2.I have placed terra cotta pipes in the ratty castle and they seem to like to chase each other through the tunnels.I`m not an expert on rats but I would suggest that anyone that owns any should try and make their lives more interesting by giving them things to "play" with that stimulate their brains.

I'm not sure if that is true, but I've read that if you have only one rat, it becomes more attached to humans than if you have several rats. It makes sense to me, because if you have only one rat, it doesn't have anybody to play with except humans. But I'm not sure which method is the better one.
I think it's probably more natural for rats to live with other rats (I know that sometimes humans can be rats as well, but that's not what I mean )

Question for damnsuicidalroos: Do your rats always get along well? Did you get them all at the same time and was it hard for them to get used to each other?

Chris three of the rats grew up together and have always got on well with each other.The fourth rat,Zanzibar,was brought home about three months after the first three and adapted well to the situation and hasn`t had any problems with the others.He is almost half the size of a normal rat but is very fast and smart.Ratty number five is being annoyed by one of the first three but there is no fighting or real biting,more like rough house that`s all.We have tried to put the annoying ratty in solitary confinement a couple of times when we have caught him being a pest but the results have been less that satisfactory and as I hate the thought of any living creature being lonely he ends up back with the others fairly quickly.I think your idea of only having one rat so as to have it become closer to you makes sense myself,though it wouldn`t work for us as we both work and I feel that as rats are a social creature one rat might get lonely.With other people that have more time to spend with their rat I assume that it would work out fine.

Bringing this up

Hello, I just adore rats. I have a male rat named Lucky. I like male rats better because girl rats get tumors at a way higher chance than males do. But if you need any help or advice I can help.

I need help passiongirl.
I`m down to two ratties at the moment and have decided that I would prefer to not see Zanzibars[my fav. rat] superior intelect die out. I want to train an army of ratties to take over the world,but that`s beside the point.
It`s winter here in Australia so I feel that Zanzibars offspring might not do so well. [Though there is no chance of any rats being allowed in the house now]. Sadly he wont live more than 3 months himself as he is getting old.
What are the things I should do to begin to raising rats? Please advice me step by step everything I should do until the ratties reach an age that will allow them to be placed in the ratty castle.

Yikes. First of all I must say that I really can't believe that I now feel somehow emotionally attached to a rat named Zanzibar. I don't care for rats at all, rodents in general I guess. Aside from Mickey, Willard, Ben, Stuart Little and Algernon (all nicely fictional ), I avoid them like the plague. But my curiosity was piqued and I found this:

www.ratsauce.com/breeding

I don't know if it'll assist at all, damnsuicidalroos. But it was interesting to read. Now if you can tell me how to figure out the generational history of a rat...

Oh, and just scroll down to "breeding info" on the left once you get there .

Thanks very much for that site Gatsby. It covers everything I wish to know about breeding etc. I liked this quote from the site in particular. "Accidental mating can happen in mere seconds -- it seems that when you WANT it to happen, it takes longer."Aint it the truth. Though I`m sure that Zanzibar what with all his charisma and all wont have to wait too long.
The page on famous ratties was also great. My favorite television rat is there and I have posted a link here to his picture.

Zanzibar our favorite rattie died about 5 hours ago.
When we first brought him home we weren`t sure how he was going to fare. He was so much smaller than the other ratties we were sure that there would be some sort of bullying of him. How wrong we were.
From the start Zanzibar stood up for himself and quickly became our favorite. The intelligence and independence he exhibited amazed both my wife and myself. I will never forget the mornings I was late for work because Zanzibar had worked his way out of rattie castle. We could see a small white shape moving through the ivy on the fence next door and were happy that he wasn`t too far away. Eventually with the help of biscuits we got him back,after the fifth time I tacked some finer mesh onto the castle.
At dinner time he was always the first to come to the front of the castle and look around for who ever was bringing the food. He used to race around picking up bits of food and take it back to his own particular area.
As I stated in another post he was the only rattie that we allowed into the house. When were first started bringing him in he rarely ventured out of his animal transporter. Though over time he learnt that it wasn`t such a bad new place to explore and he was soon running around the house smelling here and there. We never had to worry about him in the morning as he was always found fast asleep surrounded by bits of rag and food in his portable home.
Zanzibar was not a young rattie and a couple of nights ago he fell ill. I was that upset that I raced outside[mid conversation with a couple of people that I chat with from funtriv] and found him not moving. I picked his tiny body up and though he didn`t move he was still breathing. He was placed carefully back in the castle and when he was checked on the next morning he was seemingly making a recovery.
We are both thankful that he didn`t suffer for long, it was only last night that he started making little sounds that indicated that he wasn`t happy. I buried him ten minutes ago in our back garden and my wife will buy a plant to place in the ground over him.
Now this might seem like a long post about a rattie but he was not regarded as a pet or just an animal but more like a friend. He will be sadly missed.

I am so sorry about the loss of your pet, roos . Zanzibar sounded like quite a character to me (I feel, personally, like I lost a little friend that I never even met ). And I'm not being flip here---I was sorry to hear that the little guy moved on.

Just a rattie update. We have been given two young female ratties by a "uni" friend of my wife.
It was difficult to think of names but I have chosen "Sue" and "Ren" as most suitable names, for some reason those names just seemed right.
I believe I shall start breeding them but I`m not sure if "Sue" and "Ren" will be fighting over the one male ratty. They do seem very well behaved but one can never tell how they will react when there is only one male around.
I will be getting the male ratty soon and was wondering if anyone can think of a good name for him?

The tears are running down my face! There are two cats in Canada named Sara and Sue, now rats in upsidedownland - just don't name your pet spider Sue.

Edited to add that it could be worse, you might have been given some pet snakes.

Male rat? How about George (aka gtho4)?

Now you know that the Cats in Canada would love to meet the Rats in Australia.
Imagine the fun they could have.

BTW for your own sanity and the male rat's safety I wouldn't put him in with the two of them at the same time. Believe me it wouldn't be a good thing.

How about naming the male "Ratso Rizzo" after the Dustin Hoffman character in the movie "Midnight Cowboy".


Keep us posted.

PF

Well this is interesting, a couple of young rats named after Sue and Ren and a couple of mature cats named after Sue and Ren. I do hope no-one has any old Lasionycteris noctivagans as pets that need naming!

Perish the thought Roos!! Just imagine being incarcerated with some old bat!!