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Superconsndar posted:Some rats start showing a week before they pop, and some don't until 2 or 3 days before. Gestation is 3 weeks total, so just keep an eye on her and once she starts to show move her into an appropriate cage to birth in. This exactly. This last litter I had, I got five females in with two males from a wildlife center. Some nutjob had dropped them off to feed to their animals, but they only feed prekilled and no-one was very enthusiastic to kill these shabby and terrified rats. I split the group with another rescue and kept two females. Both looked normal and I figured they had probably recently had babies which didn't make it and that they were, at best, in early pregnancy. 12 hours before the first rat's scheduled e-spay, I heard eeping. We spayed the second rat and she wasn't pregnant. 
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Jun 27, 2010 01:45
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CompactFanny posted:I'm going to Goodwill tomorrow to try and find a 20gal aquarium. Wtf kind of water bottle do you use on those? You can buy metal water bottle holders at pet stores that slip over the side of teh aquarium. Or if you want to be a cheapass like me you can buy some industrial velcro from Walmart and put half on the bottle and half on the aquarium.
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Jun 27, 2010 04:52
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Cucarachita posted:I wanted to share our newest addition Princess Peach. Princess Peach is pretty adorable! I know she's glad to be in your house instead of somewhere else. You mentioned she was in a tank with a topper -- this isn't a great idea. Rats have fairly delicate respiratory systems, and aquariums can concentrate ammonia from pee like nobody's business and contribute to ongoing problems. She would also like a friend, as rats are hugely social. 
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Jun 28, 2010 11:49
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Cucarachita posted:Ya know we asked about that. We were picking up some cat food, and we happened to see another little cutey, she looked like Peaches but with brown instead of the peach splash, and I immediately thought 'that's my Princess Daisy!' but we were afraid since we got her from a different store, that perhaps there would be fighting issues. We asked how good of an idea it was and were told if we give her enough attention and socialize with her she shouldn't need a friend and boy do we ever. She's out with us pretty often, not a day goes by that I don't play with her or let her torment the cats. Unfortunately, pet stores are pretty notorious for knowing absolutely gently caress all about the animals that they sell, especially rodents. People aren't a substitute for a rat companion. My groups literally spend all day with each other. Even when they sleep they're in great big rattie piles. I'd try to find a rescue or a reputable breeder if at all possible to bring home a new rat. You're very likely to bring home sort sort of disease along with your Princess Daisy if you buy her from a pet store.
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Jun 28, 2010 18:25
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shadysight posted:Good stories. You're a better person than I am if that's the sort of cases you take in. It's also a good sight easier if you've got a good small animal rescue near you. Our rescue has a range of rats all the way from grouchy old intact males known to nip all the way down to young rats, freshly spayed and neutered, who were born in the rescue and handled daily. But we're also very up front with adopters about that and typically flat out deny people with no rat experience that think they're the rat whisperer and want the biters anyway. Rodent Mortician fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Jun 29, 2010 |
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Jun 29, 2010 22:28
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Superconsndar posted:I have always, always, always desperately wanted a gambian. Didn't they lift the ban on them recently? Yeah, they did it when they unbanned prairie dogs. Unfortunately they're still pretty rare. I think they breed kind of slowly comparatively and are fairly expensive. But one day, I'll have one too. Until then, I sponsored one of the mine seeking rats at http://herorat.org
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Jun 30, 2010 17:27
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shadysight posted:Oh, hey, this is a great idea. My rat with the terrible teeth usually has a little trouble eating by the end of month when we get her teeth trimmed again, and this seems like a great treat for her that she could actually eat. I just tried a bowl of it with her and she is also nuts for it. I even moved one of her clip on bowls from nigh-impossible to reach so she'd have easy access to it. Took her all of 10 seconds to hoard it all, so back to nigh-impossible to reach it goes If it helps, I always use baby oatmeal for my rats with bad teeth. You can get it in a pour-out box and just mix it with water so no cooking!
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Jul 9, 2010 18:30
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Gravity Pike posted:Is one rescue basically as good as another? I know that you guys are super-particular about your breeders, and pet stores are a no-go, but are there different "quality" rescues, or is the one a block and a half away as good as any other? Just MHO, but there are a variety of different types of rescues. I tend to break them down into three groups: Shelters/Humane Societies - they take whatever comes in. They'll usually do little to no socialization and probably don't provide vet care. Your range with a rat from here is anywhere from most lovable rat ever to the evilist most vile sewer rat. Diet is typically not ideal, you may be dealing with anything from parasites to tumors to aggression to nothing. Their screening standards are typically along the lines of "Are you alive?" They may even missex rats, which seems impossible, but a local shelter did give me this 'female' rat:  Generalized Rescues - rescues that don't specialize in rats or small animals but take them in whenever they must. Their care is often better than a shelter, and they'll often have sought veterinary care for the rats if they're ill, but may not have taken them to a rat savvy vet. They'll typically have a bit more screening (for example, you may be forced to prove you own a cage and are not going to hit the rat with a hammer), but in general they'll tend to have very basic ideas about rat care and will often not realize if they (or you) are doing something potentially harmful to their rats. These rats will often have at least been handled often and you'll get a general sense of whether or not the rat will bite off your finger or be a snuggler. Specialty Rescues - these people will be rat nuts, usually. They'll have detailed descriptions of their rats, especially those with behavioral problems. They may spay or neuter their rats (and will probably encourage you to have yours done if they don't have it routinely). They'll probably have guidelines to follow on diet and caging, will likely enforce social groups (won't adopt out single rats), and will quarantine rats, provide excellent vet care, and in general will be able to hand hold you through the process. You may be put through a vet and/or home check, and they'll likely stay in touch with you for a while to make sure things are ok. I would recommend that a rat newbie go to a specialty rescue or reputable breeder for their first rats, as they have the least likelihood to turn up with illnesses or issues. That's not to say that all shelter rats are going to be foaming plague beasts. I've pulled plenty of shelter rats that were friendly, precious, and healthy. But a lot of people use shelters as a catch-all for animals they don't feel like taking to the vet. I've picked up a ton of animals with serious health issues that probably would have died within a few days of adoption, and oftentimes the shelter staff won't notice because they're not used to dealing with exotics.
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Jul 10, 2010 03:48
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I did have someone surrender a female guinea pig to me before that had "late stage cancer" around "her" groin. They flipped when I extruded a penis and explained that they were testicles and not tumors.
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Jul 28, 2010 12:01
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The Oxbow's protein is pretty low for growing rats (only 14%). You could probably feed it and supplement with a high quality dog food or with protein rich 'people' food.
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Jul 30, 2010 14:50
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RatMachine posted:I have a questions for the more experienced rat goons. That sounds more like mites to me. Whenever I've had rats that routinely fought I ended up seeing gashes and scratches, not speckled scabbing.
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Aug 3, 2010 03:43
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Boco_T posted:Are they going to kill each other overnight tonight? Will they eventually get along? Should we rush out and buy a crappy small cage just so we can quarantine them for a while? Right now Trudy and Joan are sleeping on the top floor and Wrinkles is exploring the bottom, but I just don't know what kind of trouble they'll get into when the lights go out. Yes, they might kill each other. If they're fighting and can't get away, they'll keep fighting. It's pointless to quarantine now, as your existing rats are exposed to whatever nasties your new rat has, so pray like hell she wasn't carrying anything, although it's still a good idea to get her her own cage until you can spend some time doing extended introductions instead of just chucking them in together.
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Aug 3, 2010 04:15
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Slidje posted:If you wash them the fighting will continue but it wont be fights to the death. I haven't found this to be true, always. Bathing together generally helps introductions, but some rats just don't like each other. Slidje posted:Ivermectin. If you can get something called Xenex Ultra Spoton, thats what i use. With Xenex you gotta weigh them and be exact in how many drops you drip on them per 100 grams body weight. Ivermectin is right, but Xenex Ultra Spot-On appears to be permethrin which is also poo poo for dogs and cats. It's the active ingredient in the Hartz chemicals that have killed so many animals. Having a picture of a small animal on it does not mean that it is ok for small animals.
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Aug 3, 2010 16:58
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Skutter posted:RE: Ivermectin Once a week, not once a day. The life cycle of the mite is ~10 days so you're basically dosing to kill all the new hatchlings since the last kill off. I typically do 3 doses, one week apart, but if there are super bad mites it may take 4-5 treatments.
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Aug 24, 2010 02:35
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Smee posted:Don't really see what the big deal is. We had the room and the experience handling rats to decide what the hey, and they all turned out perfectly healthy and pretty gatdam awesome. I did something once and it turned out awesome so it could never go badly!  Randomly putting two random rats together to make babies based on zero knowledge of their genetics (and having no loving idea how they raise their young or how to help in the event of an emergency) is a great way to have babies dying randomly of painful ailments like megacolon.
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Oct 28, 2010 01:15
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Deadly Chlorine posted:Welp, yes, that might probably be what happened, then. He did seem completely fine the night before, and I couldn't see anything that might have killed him, though, considering he never did show that much aggression before. It could also have been a heart issue or a stroke of some sort. We had a foster home call me hysterically for virtually the same problem. Post-mortem on the dead bro showed he'd had an enlarged heart and likely died of a heart attack and then his cagemate freaked out and tried to eat him. I always tell people that if it started after they were dead, there's likely not going to be much blood, but if they actually had a fight and it ended in death there should be blood everywhere.
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Nov 13, 2010 17:47
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Zash posted:Ahh, I see what you mean. She mostly just breeds rats for pleasure so I'm not surprised. She did care for them very well though so I'm pleased! Yeah, just to reiterate, this is not a good breeder. This is someone who is ignorant of rats that likes to play with baby rats and make purty colors. Which seems harmless until your rats rack up thousands in vet bills due to preventable diseases or you end up with megacolon or other serious health problems.
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Jan 8, 2011 21:05
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redjenova posted:What happened to my rat's whiskers? Squiggles is a whisker chewer.
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Jan 20, 2011 22:04
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Mongoloid Joe posted:Hey guys. Has anyone ever had trouble getting their ratties to eat Oxbow's Regal Rat? I've tried and gone through several bags of just having it collect dust in the food bowl. It's gotten to the point where my girls starve themselves because they refuse to touch it. I've actually heard of this a lot; some rats just really hate the taste of Regal Rat. My potbellied velocirattors don't bother letting small things like taste stop them, so I haven't had it happen personally.
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Jan 30, 2011 16:42
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killerwhat posted:Are lab rats really going to make pet rats healthier? The lab strains are inbred, I suppose I would have thought that as soon as you outbreed to some longer lived rats, you'd start to lose the benefit of the reduced cancer incidence or whatever the strain had. Can anyone here explain how it works? It's interesting. FWIW, I know that bringing lab rats into lines to make things better is a popular notion, but I've got a metric fuckton of these bastards in the rescue (some lab employee down south had like 15 of them up for euthanasia that she loved and couldn't bear to see die). They're all developing cancer like mad and wheezing up a storm. The derpy hoarder rats I took in the year beforehand have turned out to overall be healthier and longer lived (although so terribly socialized and dickish they never went anywhere). "Lab rat" covers a broad spectrum. The people I've known that have gotten the ZOMG MYCO-FREE lab rats have lived in terror that some wild rodent would transmit myco to their special rats and it would take them down fast. Wild rats are common enough here that I've had several individuals contact me when their females mysteriously birthed entire litters of agouti rats in all-female homes -- it'd be just as easy for them to drag myco around.
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Feb 28, 2011 02:22
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dog days are over posted:Then we had a sudden cardboard shortage so I had them on shredded paper for a while, and they couldn't use cardboard on the gravy anymore. So they came up with a NEW trick, which was to drop a small ball into the bowl and slowly turn it, licking the gravy off it as it turned. Obviously they didn't PLAN that, but the fact that they just sort of noticed it was a good method of getting gravy without dirtying their dainty little paws makes me kinda My first group of rats learned to harvest hair off my dog. They'd get a piece of dog food out of their mix, and one would be the lure. The dog would come up to the cage, the rat would move along the side to make the dog parallel to the cage, and while the bait rat kept throwing food out the other rats would yank hair off the dog's back for nests. My dog was outsmarted by rats.
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Mar 3, 2011 14:36
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GenericOverusedName posted:Anybody know where I should look to find local breeders? I've looked through local shelters, but there was only a single pair nearby and they were almost 2 years old already. I'd rather not have sickly old rats as my first, since I don't think I'd be able to care for them very well. I'm near Raleigh, NC, if that helps. Carolina Pet Rescue, in Durham, has three young agouti males: http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/18926635 http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/18926647 http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/18926658 I foster rats in NC (and actually have the old pair, if I'm remembering the listings right). Rats are tough, they're adoptable age for about 3 months and then they're "too old".
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Apr 5, 2011 04:51
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Check with the vet obviously, but 14 days is a pretty standard course of ABs for rodents. I've rarely had one on them for less than that.
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May 2, 2011 04:35
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Chin Strap posted:Really? Because for guinea pigs I've been told it is some of the easier things to keep the stink down because you can vacuum up the poop. It's different for rats because a.) their poop isn't quite as easy to vacuum up as pigs (it tends to be more on the squishy side), and b.) rats are destructors. When I used fleece it'd be torn up and chewed through in about 10 minutes.
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May 17, 2011 16:01
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Chin Strap posted:Still trying to read up on rats more but they definitely seem in my future. Why aren't rat breeders as disdained by this forum as most breeders of seemingly every other pet are? Are there just more good breeders? Or not that many in rescues? In my experience in rescue, the truly good breeder community for rats (ie, not just the people who zomg want a blue dumbo capped rex or whatever) is hugely different than what I consider the 'worst' species. I've spoken with multiple breeders who keep extensive pedigrees including death reason (as confirmed by necropsy in most cases). They're also not killing off their culls as a general rule because they want to see what those animals produce, healthwise. And they heavily support the rescue community. The sugar glider community and the hedgehog community are similar, and I think that's partially because to breed them in any great number you've got to be USDA permitted. The glider community also has an online pedigree registry that anyone can go through which is pretty neat. Of course there ARE bad breeders (and one giantly notorious mill for gliders), but it doesn't seem nearly as prevalent. In contrast, guinea pig/rabbit breeders tend to have a lot of animals in very cramped conditions, not track them until their death, sell or give them away fairly indiscriminately with little interest in tracking their animals (I've received dozens of breeder pigs and rabbits -- I've never received a rat from a breeder considered even passably responsible), many of them cull and sell to reptile food (which I don't have a problem with in general, but when you're breeding for show and killing half of your animals how do you know they're healthy in the long term?) and in general provide little to no vet care. I've known multiple rabbit breeders just tell me that there are no good rabbit vets around them. Many of them have also told me things like "rabbits don't need hay" or that female rabbits don't develop reproductive cancers (every female we've taken in over the age of 5 in nearly 10 years has had tumors developing which we discovered at spay). More than one also refer to rescues and the house rabbit society as "animal rights activists" because their recommended care information is different than what ARBA recommends. In short, I feel like the culture is very different. They see their animals as livestock for the most part, and rat breeders do seem to see their animals as pets, unless they're feeder breeding. But that's just my experience/opinion on both sides.
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May 18, 2011 13:22
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Additionally, with some of the other species, anything you breed will be around for 7-15 years. They also typically require more room. In the floorspace it'd take me to house 4-5 guinea pigs or 2 rabbits in what I'd consider bare minimum, I can put rat cages there that would spaciously accommodate 10-14 rats (depending on how well they got along). And if none of them get adopted, they'll all likely be dead within 3 years. Meanwhile we have rabbits in the rescue who have been in foster for over 4 years now.
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May 18, 2011 20:26
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I know how frustrating that is to want to rescue or go to a good breeder and not have one nearby that you can support. I think the unfortunate thing is that a lot of rescues don't "do" rats because they can be fairly difficult to adopt out. When I last checked our numbers I think 50% of our rats ended up going nowhere once they got here. I've got 9 in foster right now over a year that I'm basically waiting for them to die because we just don't get apps on old rats. Of those 9, 5 have been here since they were 8 weeks old, and 3 were born in my house. It's just a money hole. 
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May 19, 2011 10:06
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dustbin posted:Thanks Slidje, they are pretty shy still and not super food driven. They accepted crackers through the bars earlier, and ate some grapes, but they weren't super eager to take food out of my hand. I've love to hear how other experienced owners have handled new rats. Avoid giving them food through the bars. Rats have a great sense of smell and a not so great sense of sight, and oftentimes this'll lead to them nailing people's fingers and arms through the bar because they'll continuously be in orgasmic excitement that OMG FOOD may come through at some point.
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Jun 15, 2011 08:09
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This only works in the summer, but I dose my guys using slurpee syrup that I buy at Walmart. That stuff is like ratcrack and they ONLY get it when they get meds.
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Jul 21, 2011 00:39
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Rathen posted:Alright so again it's decision time. One of my girlies has survived an operation to remove a lump, back in February time. Now she's got a mammary lump growing, and I'm not sure what to do. It's definitely increasing in size and we've been to the vet once who said to monitor it (our vet is great). It's been my experience that if you want to do surgery, you should go ahead and do it as soon as you notice the lump. It will always grow, and the rat will only get older, weaker, and more affected by it. If you can't do surgery, then monitor and decide on euthanasia appropriately. My Cecilie had 3 tumors removed after her 2nd birthday and bounced back well. Her 6th (total) around 2.5 years was where we finally decided she'd gotten too frail.
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Jul 24, 2011 22:09
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eig posted:How much does it cost for tumor removal? @__@ Is it really worth it? Each of her removals cost between $75-$150 (depending on area, size, and difficulty of removal), including a trip to the e-vet that cost $150 when the glue gave way on one of the surgeries. Cecelie had her first tumor when she was around 8 months of age, so we probably ended up at least doubling her life. It's a really personal thing as to whether or not it's "worth" it. I foster small animals and we average about $200/critter on vet care, so spending $75 on a rat is not really that unusual or strange to me. She was the best rat I've ever owned and looking back I certainly don't regret spending the money and would have had the last tumor removed with no reservations if she'd been in better shape and I felt like she'd have done ok with it. Her last day we fed her tiny rat cookies and she laid on my chest and bruxed and boggled her eyes with her hands full of cookies. It's still my best memory of her.
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Jul 25, 2011 12:19
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 Picked up this fearsome stray rat off death row this morning. She is bruxing in my ear and stole one of my pencils.
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Aug 6, 2011 16:30
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The Phantom Goat posted:and also, does anyone know of a cheap place to have rats spayed/nuetered in the raleigh, NC area? Hey NC buddy! You can try New Hope Animal Hospital in Durham. Kay Bishop runs Carolina Pet Rescue and spays and neuters rats. Avian and Exotic will do it too but it'll run you a mint.
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Aug 18, 2011 18:51
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Big Bug Hug posted:Pris is a cutie. She eats on you cause she feels safe If it makes you feel better my last rats were assholes that would punch each other in the face to take whatever the other one was eating. 
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Aug 30, 2011 00:42
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If you don't have the powder, or can't get to a pet store, corn starch accomplishes basicallly the same thing.
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Sep 18, 2011 17:04
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eig posted:i'm sorry but who would pay that much money for a pet that lives only like 2 years u__u People who are interested in having them live longer? I mean yeah it sucks they only live 2-3 years, but that doesn't mean I don't want them to get cancer and die at 1 year.
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Sep 23, 2011 16:29
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Superconsndar posted:Balls. Quoted for truth. Naked rats feel like scrotums.
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Nov 15, 2011 03:18
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I think the girls smell like off brand grape soda. People with stinky rats generally don't clean the cage enough or have them living in aquariums with poor ventilation.
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Nov 28, 2011 00:51
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Males also have mammary tissue and can get mammary tumors (although it's not as common), kind of the same way that human dudes can get breast cancer even though they don't really have breasts in the way we think of breasts. He's not a hermaphrodite, just unlucky.
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Dec 30, 2011 06:55
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If one was male, I'd encourage her to give it a couple of weeks in case her remaining female is pregnant by her roomate. Then she'll have LOTS of rats! 
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Jan 2, 2012 21:26
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