Rats

About Rats

Rats as Pets Rats may seem like a bad choice for a pet, but are actually the best rodents to have for a domestic pet. Among all the animals in the rodent family, rats are the ones that will be mild manner if you get them when they are young. Rats will eat anything you feed them and will be overly friendly to those they know. It you devote enough time to the rats you will learn that they have their own personalities and traits. If a rat is raised with no other rats nearby, and only humans for company, the rat will be threatening to other rats. It is believed that the rat starts to picture itself as one of the humans.

Caution

Rats have three major flaws though. Never get a male and a female. Otherwise you will have a litter ranging from 8 to 30 babies. Another failing is they are always trailing themselves with urine. The last fault is that you need to always clean their cage, commonly every week. They can use anything for a cage as long as it is metal or glass.

Caring for Rats

Rats have incredible senses of hearing and smell, although they are quite blind. Despite belief, rats are very easy to train if you are willing to devote the time.

It is always ideal to put cardboard or something that the rat can use to chew on. Their teeth are always growing and if they are not constantly using them they will grow too long and the rat will starve. It is also recommended to keep rats and their cages out of the basement, the radiation from our technology has been know to give rats cancer. The same applies with our food, it is not a bad idea to give them some, but try to keep them on a diet. Otherwise the rats will continue to grow.

Amazing Rat Facts

In the 1700s, rats actually grew to the size of small dogs. On ships crossing the Atlantic the rats would wind up eating the cats that were there to drive the rats away!

Photo Credit: Andrew Bishop