# Rattus norvegicus



## Kayti (Dec 6, 2009)

Hey, I just cleaned out the rat manor and thought I would share. I have 2 rats, Lilly and Penelope, and they're the best. Rats are awesome pets if they are well socialized and intellectually stimulated. Whenever we are home they roam around the house, jumping on my housemates and digging through things that don't belong to them. We actually had to get a rodent ball for Lilly recently because she figured out how to crawl up onto the kitchen counters. (eek)

Penelope came from a pet store in Medford, along with her sister, Olive. They kept their rats in 5 gallon tanks on ceder, with no hides, and did not separate the sexes. A couple weeks after I got them, Olive died suddenly. One day she was sneezing and lethargic, and the next she was dead . So I took Penelope to the vet the next day, and she was diagnosed with a bacterial infection, which was treated with Baytril. She recovered from the sneezes, but then had a severe reaction to Baytril and started having massive seizures and periods of weird frozen-ness. I thought she was going to die, but she got better! A couple weeks after she recovered fully, I adopted her a new friend (because rats should never be kept alone) over Craigslist. Lilly was the product of a pregnant pet store rat, and was nuts from the start. She's more like a pit-bull than a rodent 

Penelope is modeling their mansion here because she loves it in there- Lilly was probably out terrorizing the world. 






Penelope, investigating the camera:





Lilly, back in September before we knew she was a terror:





Lilly, showing off her tummy:





I perused a few rodent forums a while ago- and rat people are nuts! I mush prefer chelonian folk


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## Madkins007 (Dec 6, 2009)

I love rats- my favorite small pet! I know a lot of people are freaked out by the tail and reputation, but these guys are great! They've been domesticated for more generations than any other animal, intelligent enough to learn lots of cool stuff, not nearly as skittish as mice and such, not smelly (when properly cared for), friendly and personable most of the time, easy care... great animals. 

For a few years, I had a series of rats in my shop/office at work. I would love to do it again, but I don't have the same space and flexibility.


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## Isa (Dec 7, 2009)

Awww Penelope and Lilly are soooo cute  I would love to have pet rats, but my fiance does not want to. 
What is the substrate at the bottom of their cage? What do you feed them?
I really like their enclosures, it is really nice!


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## Kayti (Dec 7, 2009)

I know, they're awesome! And way _too _intelligent, if you ask me. I've just managed to train them to stay out of the garbage and the kitchen and the tortoise enclosures, but only to the point where they'll wait until I'm not looking. 

My boyfriend didn't want them either at first, but I weedled and weedled, and then their natural lovableness took over. Now he plays with them even more than I do, and he even made a movie with Lilly that's insanely cute. 

The substrate at the bottom is carefresh- they only go potty down there, which makes clean-up nice. And they eat a mixture of different rat diets I found in the pet store here, and a quality kitten food because I don't trust those rat diets at all. Ideally I would feed them Harlan Teklad pellets, because everyone says that is the best diet, but that company is pure evil and I didn't want to have anything to do with them. Plus, pellets are boring.  Oh, they also get fresh veggies and assorted treats every day. 
Spoiled!


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## Isa (Dec 7, 2009)

That is sooo cute,
how do you train them to not go somewhere?


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## Kayti (Dec 7, 2009)

Isa said:


> That is sooo cute,
> how do you train them to not go somewhere?



Whenever we find them someplace they are not aloud, they go straight into the cage again. It's really funny watching Lilly get discovered misbehaving, because her whole body posture changes and she either freezes, or bolts. Being out of the cage is her favorite thing, so it works out pretty well. 

Penelope so far has been kind or perfect, and we never really have to discipline her. It's lucky because she actually likes the cage, so I don't know what we'd do!


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## Isa (Dec 7, 2009)

Kayti said:


> Whenever we find them someplace they are not aloud, they go straight into the cage again. It's really funny watching Lilly get discovered misbehaving, because her whole body posture changes and she either freezes, or bolts. Being out of the cage is her favorite thing, so it works out pretty well.
> 
> Penelope so far has been kind or perfect, and we never really have to discipline her. It's lucky because she actually likes the cage, so I don't know what we'd do!



Very fascinating 
I will have to have a discussion with my fiance about that


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## terryo (Dec 7, 2009)

They're really adorable. That cage looks like a great home too. My grand daughter had pet mice, and they really smelled up the whole house, no matter how clean you kept them. Do rats smell also?


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## Stephanie Logan (Dec 7, 2009)

Ditto to all of Madkins' comments about rats. They are great pets. My husband had a pet rat named Dog when we first met...afer I got over the tail thing I LOVED that little rodent...put her on my shoulder when I went bike riding or to the BX...when she got a mammary tumor I got hysterical and took her to the university in Pullman to have her operated on at their vet school...bought her about another six months...and when she died I had a big funeral for her, it was so sad.

I always recommend rats to people who want relatively low-maintenance pets, because they don't live more than a few years, so if the kids lose interest and the parents end up taking care of it, the "work" doesn't go on for too many years.

Rats are much cleaner and much smarter than mice, or hamsters, or gerbils IMO...gentle, loving, rarely bite...sweet critters!


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## alfiethetortoise (Dec 7, 2009)

After discovering wild rat in my outbuilding/shed/porch a couple of weeks ago i now hate rats to the point of an amost phobia..... though your rats look cute


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## Yvonne G (Dec 7, 2009)

alfiethetortoise said:


> After discovering wild rat in my outbuilding/shed/porch a couple of weeks ago i now hate rats to the point of an amost phobia..... though your rats look cute



(outhouse??LOL!!)


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## alfiethetortoise (Dec 7, 2009)

emysemys said:


> alfiethetortoise said:
> 
> 
> > After discovering wild rat in my outbuilding/shed/porch a couple of weeks ago i now hate rats to the point of an amost phobia..... though your rats look cute
> ...



i call it an outhouse, but some people here thought i ment some wooden toilet from 1900s lol, its more a porce with electricity. c.f. the Rats thread!


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## Madkins007 (Dec 7, 2009)

terryo said:


> They're really adorable. That cage looks like a great home too. My grand daughter had pet mice, and they really smelled up the whole house, no matter how clean you kept them. Do rats smell also?



They can if you don't keep them clean- just like so many animals, but their urine and waste is not as pungent as mice, etc. You could rarely tell I had them in the office when I changed the pelleted litter on a weekly basis.

One other thing I loved about the rats- I could buy big bags of the litter and lab blocks at the feed and grain for almost nothing and they lasted forever. (I DID supplement the lab blocks by the way.)



alfiethetortoise said:


> After discovering wild rat in my outbuilding/shed/porch a couple of weeks ago i now hate rats to the point of an amost phobia..... though your rats look cute



Wild rats and lab rats have little to do with each other after zillions of generations of domestication. I understand phobias and dislikes, but it really is unfair to generalize your opinions of vermin onto wonderful little pets, just like it would be unfair to hate dogs because you are afraid of wolves.


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## Kayti (Dec 7, 2009)

> They can if you don't keep them clean- just like so many animals, but their urine and waste is not as pungent as mice, etc. You could rarely tell I had them in the office when I changed the pelleted litter on a weekly basis.



I clean mine out weekly, and they never smell either. In my experience, girls smell much less than boys, and don't pee on your stuff. I've only had 6 rats total though, and only 2 boys, so that could have been an individual thing only. 

Mice smell so bad! I've had 2 friends who kept mice, and both their rooms staaank. 



> After discovering wild rat in my outbuilding/shed/porch a couple of weeks ago i now hate rats to the point of an amost phobia..... though your rats look cute



Who could have a phobia of this??





But seriosuly, I have a friend whose house was recently overrun by rats while they were gone for the summer. Not a pretty sight. Or smell. 
But Madkinds is completely right, wild rats are really nothing like domestic fancy rats. I've read stories of people trying to raise orphaned baby wild rats as pets, and it never works out. Pet rats have been bred for their temperaments since the 18th century, it's way more than just putting them in a fleecy cage and giving them names!
Similarly, there was an add on Craigslist recently by a guy complaining about how people weren't paying him what he wanted for his feeder rats, so he decided to just release them outside. His argument was that "rats are survivors" or something dumb like that. It's 20 degrees outside here, and he was trying to say a bunch of fancy rats raised in a tank were going to live happy, long lives. Maddening!


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## terryo (Dec 7, 2009)

OMG!! That is so cute. I can't even show this thread to my grandson or that will be on his Chrismas list. (he loves reading all these threads and looking at the pictures) Sorry...but I can't even think about feeding little pinkies to anything....some people feed them live to their Reds. Yuk!!


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## Floof (Dec 7, 2009)

Kayti, your rats are so cute! They sound like real characters, too...

You guys are evil. Now I want a rat. Again. I've been debating with myself on whether or not a rodent is the "right" pet for me for a year or more. I've had one hamster (didn't last long with my brother leaving the cage open all the time and two big dogs in the house) and a bunch of mice (more feeder breeders for the baby snakes than pets), and both experiences put me off the idea... But, on the other hand, I have most of a 50 lb bag of Mazuri 6F and a big bag of carefresh left over from the mice that I otherwise don't have a use for. That should be enough excuse to give rats a try, right...? 

Oh, I'm so going to Craigslist to look for good, inexpensive rat cages now. You bad, bad influences!


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## Kayti (Dec 7, 2009)

Floof said:


> Kayti, your rats are so cute! They sound like real characters, too...
> 
> You guys are evil. Now I want a rat. Again. I've been debating with myself on whether or not a rodent is the "right" pet for me for a year or more. I've had one hamster (didn't last long with my brother leaving the cage open all the time and two big dogs in the house) and a bunch of mice (more feeder breeders for the baby snakes than pets), and both experiences put me off the idea... But, on the other hand, I have most of a 50 lb bag of Mazuri 6F and a big bag of carefresh left over from the mice that I otherwise don't have a use for. That should be enough excuse to give rats a try, right...?
> 
> Oh, I'm so going to Craigslist to look for good, inexpensive rat cages now. You bad, bad influences!



Haha yay! 

I just found this baby picture of P, and I died. Look at how little!



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## Shelly (Dec 13, 2009)

Rats make great pets. They are very curious and much smarter than you might think. The downside is that, like most rodents, they don't live very long. Maybe 3 years tops.


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## Madkins007 (Dec 13, 2009)

My favorite rat so far, Ratchet, could wander the shop I worked in and had hiding places with nests and stashes of food all over the place. When I would tap something against the desk or something, he would come to me for food or to be petted. 

It took a lot of patience to get him to that point, and at first, he was limited to just my desk. I would take a treat and tap it, then reward him when he took it. I kept that up until tapping got him to come back to his 'home'. Then I added 'bridges' to more and more locations. Fun fun fun!


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## ChiKat (Dec 15, 2009)

The worst part about rats is their short lifespan 
I've had 5 rats, but the last one passed away last year. I'll have to post some pictures of them!
They are such amazing little creatures! So intelligent and friendly!
I look forward to getting more rats in the future.


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