Do you have pet rats?

...For such devoted Fans of the Rats of NIMH, I'm surprised there hasn't been more discussion just about fascination and reverence for rats, those awesome little super-mammals that almost rule the world. I suppose that would be wandering a little-off topic, because this is a Rats of NIMH forum and not just a rat discussion group, but I'm sure a little discussion about rats in general wouldn't hurt anything.

Ever since I read Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH I've been a total rat freak, I just love rats. I've had 5 pet rats and 3 pet mice over the years, all named after Rats of NIMH characters.

I highly respect and admire rats, and what incredible survivors they are, (the second most successful mammals to humans). They can leap distances of up to 10 feet, survive a 5-story fall without injury, squeeze into any hole their head can fit through, and can gnaw through steel and concrete. Rats can survive nuclear fallout and can run, climb, swim and leap just about anywhere they want to.

Does anyone on this forum have pet rats, or just love rats in general?

Oh yeah... silly me, I forgot to talk about rats as pets!

Rats make such perfect pets, as you can imagine, they're cute, but they're also affectionate, very intelligent, (even without genetic enhancement) they're very trainable, and like people, they all have individual personalities. They are very curious and playful, they love to explore and play. They are very clean rodents, always grooming and bathing themselves, and have low odor levels.

I don't just keep my rats in a cage too look at, I regularly take them out to groom them, play with them, even take them on a walk.

For more resources on pet rats, here are some great links:

http://www.ratfanclub.org/
http://www.quite.co.uk/rats/
http://www.mypetrat.com/

Rats are very special sentient creatures with souls and spirits that deserve our respect and personal rights.

As I have learned as much as I have about how very special rats are, and grown to know them and love many of them personally, It has made me very opposed to the cruelty of scientists that torture, mutilate, maim, and kill millions of rats every year in the name of science. I will simply sum up my feelings with this well-known quote concerning animal experimentation:


Ask the experimenters why they experiment on animals, and the answer is: "Because the animals are like us." Ask the experimenters why it is morally okay to experiment on animals, and the answer is: "Because the animals are not like us." Animal experimentation rests on a logical contradiction. ~Charles R. Magel

I have two. They occasionally decide to reproduce, though, so on occasiona I have a horde.

"Jenner" and "Jess". Hehe. :) I go for the original names, can't you tell? :wink:

They're cool, but if you go without handling them for very long they (and by they I mean the females) get mean. They warm up again, though; you just gotta wear gloves those first few days. :?

I have two as well. Laura and Metilda. I have had many in the past as well and even bred some.

At the moment, I have three. still trying to find names for them, though. :? My mom is taking care of them (I live with my grandma) and she says she can't keep all three, so I have to decide between the two dumbo rats or the lil' rex rat. :cry: The rex rat looks a bit like Darla, but mom says she doesn't want to call it that........ and here I was thinking it was suppose to be my rat. I had two before, but my stupid brother killed them off. :evil: ligrumblesli Stupid idiot! And now he wants to take care of these for me? Fat chance!!!!

I hav`nt had any pet rats yet, tho I think about getting some from time to time. I heard they are very smart. 8)

I mostly had mice and hamsters as pets.

Yo!

I admire rats in general for there looks and survivle skills. Trueiy inspiring I feel!

I don't have any pet rats at the moment but I DID have one Black and White one called Splinter (after Master Splinter from "Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles." which I now dispise!) I loved him, for a limited time anyway but as is the case during youth my interests changed (to what I can't remember).

Sadly, when he died I didn't notice until 3 YEARS afterwards!!! :shock: :shock: :shock: :oops: and my friends and family still haven't let me live it down!

L8tr!

Jam-

P.S RIP Splinter I hardly knew yee...no realy I didn't!

My oldest brother used to have two. A female named Rattus and a male named Rattus Rattus.

They were great pets, the male in particular was friendly and playful and you could even let him play in the yard and he wouldn't try to run away.

I'd love to have a pet rat... unfortunately, my apartment doesn't allow pets, and I'm busy enough that I don't think I'd be able to take care of them as well at the moment.

I myself have never had a rat or rats for a pet, I do remember as a kid having gerbils which are about halfway in size between a rat and a mouse. My experience with them is very similiar to what was described for a rat insofar as they were playful, affectionate, clean (very little odor), and intelligent. I can remember after a few months training, one that we had named Charlie mastered a small maze that we had set up for him. At his peak, he was able to run the maze in under one minute.

I've wanted a pet rat for a long tme, but my stepmother hates them(WHY?!) The same goes for mice as well. lisighli The fact that I'm 22 doesn't change a thing: I still live under my folks' roof. Darn bad vision, preventing me from driving or working!

I have had hamsters and gerbils before, unfortunately I often neglected to clean the cage regularly, so that doesn't help my case either. Add to that the fact that I currently own two zebra finches, a parakeet, two peafowl, and a dog(which doesn't include my parents' dog). :P

Yes, I have pet rats (and pet mice)

See more about them on my blog (many interesting entries including photos are in the archives there, easily accessed from the front page)

http://weelittlebeasties.blogspot.com

awe we dont really have mice my cousin does though. anyway the only mouse in our house is an un wanted visitor who my moms got a trap for. dont ask me to talk her out of it. because then the choice is me and the mouse or just the mouse.

My family use to have three pet rats years ago. I really enjoyed having them around. Technically they were my sisters. If it weren't for me, they would have probably never been feed, or had their cage cleaned. Not to mention never taken -out- of their cage. I use to visit, and play with them all the time.

It always bothers me hearing others speaking ill of rats. They're such an underrated animal, with a terrible reputation. I even hear people showing disgust for rats when seeing them in the pet stores. I always enjoy informing them that rats are cleaner animals than their cat. A cat will clean itself a couple times per day. A rat is -constantly- cleaning itself. Some day I should get some more pet rats. Although, when that time comes, I'll hopefully have at least one pet Fennec as well. Who hopefully won't see the rats as "lunch." Although, given how our cats at the time got along with our rats to the point of gently playing with, and interacted with the rats we had. The cats didn't seem too interested in harming our rats, hopefully a Fennec could be taught the same. :roll:

Leejakobson;
Living in rural Canada, we have frequent mouse-guests (get it? mouse-guests, instead of house-guests? :lol:) and have found an excellent way to put them back where they belong, without doing any more harm to them, then perhaps giving them a bit of a fright. There are a number of humane mice traps on the market. Heck, ours is even hand-made and uses the mouse's own body weight, gravity and inertia to trigger the trap. You can find plenty of humane traps HERE.[=http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=Humane+Mouse+Traps]HERE.

Cool,

Thanks for digging this old thread back up! I forgot about it!

Living in rural Canada, we have frequent mouse-guests (get it? mouse-guests, instead of house-guests? Laughing) and have found an excellent way to put them back where they belong, without doing any more harm to them, then perhaps giving them a bit of a fright. There are a number of humane mice traps on the market. Heck, ours is even hand-made and uses the mouse's own body weight, gravity and inertia to trigger the trap. You can find plenty of humane traps HERE.

...We have humane mousetraps too, but we've only had problems with mice once, but funny story: when we set up the traps for them, (which were tiny boxes that tilted as the mouse walked into the end of it, closing the lid on the other end) we put a piece of cheese in them like usual and put them in the garage where the mice were, but the first thing we caught was: a toad! Didn't know toads liked cheese so much... but the second time around we caught our culprit. Man, that little brown fieldmouse wasn't like the tame lab mouse. Those mice can jump really high! He almost jumped out of the box we put him into to look at him. Then we would have had to do that all over again! We released him back outside a few lots over.

Cool,

Thanks for digging this old thread back up! I forgot about it!

...We have humane mousetraps too, but we've only had problems with mice once, but funny story: when we set up the traps for them, (which were tiny boxes that tilted as the mouse walked into the end of it, closing the lid on the other end) we put a piece of cheese in them like usual and put them in the garage where the mice were, but the first thing we caught was: a toad! Didn't know toads liked cheese so much... but the second time around we caught our culprit. Man, that little brown fieldmouse wasn't like the tame lab mouse. Those mice can jump really high! He almost jumped out of the box we put him into to look at him. Then we would have had to do that all over again! We released him back outside a few lots over.

No problem.

Ours is wooden, and work exactly like yours does, from the way you describe it. You might be interested to know, cheese is more or less the worst bait you can put out for a mouse. Mice don't really care for cheese that much. Although if they're hungry enough, they will eat it. The best bait to use, is peanut butter. I tend to put a bit of peanut butter on a cracker and put it in the trap.

Usually If the mouse is nearby, I'll usually have him in the trap within 30 min, to an hour or two in most cases. My best record is 5 minutes. I set the trap, and sat down in the living room, not a few feet where the trap was. Had barely gotten settled when I heard "CLACK" of the door rattling shut. Sure enough, our little friend was inside. The only problem with the wooden trap, is the wood gives a mouse -lots- of traction to hold onto. Usually I need to give the trap a light shake if I want him out -now- but typically I'll just lay it down outside, with a bit of food out in front of the trap, with a clear, short distance to a safe place to hide.

We once had like 10 mice in our house, nearly in the same place. It was a small infestation. Tried constantly with cheese for a good week. Caught a couple now and again, but once we switched to peanut butter, we caught them one after another. Sometimes we wonder if it was 10 mice, or the same damn mouse over and over again :?

Cool,

Thanks for digging this old thread back up! I forgot about it!

...We have humane mousetraps too, but we've only had problems with mice once, but funny story: when we set up the traps for them, (which were tiny boxes that tilted as the mouse walked into the end of it, closing the lid on the other end) we put a piece of cheese in them like usual and put them in the garage where the mice were, but the first thing we caught was: a toad! Didn't know toads liked cheese so much... but the second time around we caught our culprit. Man, that little brown fieldmouse wasn't like the tame lab mouse. Those mice can jump really high! He almost jumped out of the box we put him into to look at him. Then we would have had to do that all over again! We released him back outside a few lots over.

No problem.

Ours is wooden, and work exactly like yours does, from the way you describe it. You might be interested to know, cheese is more or less the worst bait you can put out for a mouse. Mice don't really care for cheese that much. Although if they're hungry enough, they will eat it. The best bait to use, is peanut butter. I tend to put a bit of peanut butter on a cracker and put it in the trap.

Usually If the mouse is nearby, I'll usually have him in the trap within 30 min, to an hour or two in most cases. My best record is 5 minutes. I set the trap, and sat down in the living room, not a few feet where the trap was. Had barely gotten settled when I heard "CLACK" of the door rattling shut. Sure enough, our little friend was inside. The only problem with the wooden trap, is the wood gives a mouse -lots- of traction to hold onto. Usually I need to give the trap a light shake if I want him out -now- but typically I'll just lay it down outside, with a bit of food out in front of the trap, with a clear, short distance to a safe place to hide.

We once had like 10 mice in our house, nearly in the same place. It was a small infestation. Tried constantly with cheese for a good week. Caught a couple now and again, but once we switched to peanut butter, we caught them one after another. Sometimes we wonder if it was 10 mice, or the same damn mouse over and over again :?

humane traps eh
i really doubt my mom would go for that she thinks they are vermin that unless killed keep coming back. i would not mind catching them alive for once though. now dont get me wrong its not like she hates animals its she hates mice.

humane traps eh. i really doubt my mom would go for that she thinks they are vermin that unless killed keep coming back. i would not mind catching them alive for once though. now dont get me wrong its not like she hates animals its she hates mice.

You should try getting some anyway, and see how they work out. Humane traps are only a few bucks. $5 to $10 at the -very- most. Although, she may be right from my experience. We always get mice in this exact same spot in our house. Were going to start snapping photos with it on our digicam, and comparing :lol: