Rat Care
Rats are friendly, intelligent and playful animals. They make excellent pets, are easily cared for, and they become quite attached to their care givers. Rats are very social animals and should be housed in same-sex pairs or groups. With good care, most rats will live two to three years.
Housing
Rats should be securely housed in a spacious cage. Many of the small animal cages sold in pet stores are not large enough for rats.
A proper rat cage should:
Martins, FerretNation and CritterNation all have cages suitable for rats.
Proper bedding is crucial for rat health. Cedar, pine and cat litter should never be used. There are a variety of beddings that are suitable:
- Yesterday’s News or similar recycled newspaper bedding
- Carefresh
- Aspen shavings
- Hardwood wood stove pellets
- Shredded newspaper
- Fleece
Litter Training
Many rats can be littered trained. Some will be better than others. Often rats will poop in their litter box consistency but may continue to urinate in different areas of their cage.
To litter train your rats, place a litter pan in the area they are using as their bathroom (rats like to be clean and will normally use a particular corner of the cage). Use a different type of litter in the pan than on the cage floor to help the rats tell the difference. Place a small amount of soiled litter in the pan.
If the rats go the bathroom outside the pan, place the soiled bedding into the litter pan. Continue to do this every day until they start to regularly use the litter pan. Once the rats are using the litter box fairly regularly switch their cage bedding to fleece and use only litter in the litter pan.
Nutrition
Just like humans, proper nutrition keeps rats healthy and happy. There are many products marketed as rat feed, which are not suitable for rats. Avoid any product that contains seed and do not feed hamster or gerbil food. Rats are rats.
We recommend
- Martin Mills Mouse & Rat Ration
- Oxbow Regal Rat
Rat food or blocks should make up about 80% of your rat’s diet. The remaining 20% should be fresh fruit and vegetables and some table scraps like scrambled eggs, pasta or brown rice.
Avoid the treats sold at pet stores. They are loaded with sugar. Instead try puffed rice or other cereal and fresh fruit such as blueberries, ripe banana and grapes.
The following foods should never be fed to a rat:
- Blue cheese
- Raw dry beans or peanuts
- Raw sweet potato
- Raw red cabbage and Brussels sprouts
- Raw artichokes
- Green bananas
- Green potato skin and eyes
- Rhubarb
- Orange juice
- Raw onion or garlic
- Any type of sweet or junk food for humans
Rat Proofing
Rats should be let out of their cage for at least two hours a day for exercise and socializing. It’s important to rat-proof the room your rat will be kept in or perhaps your whole house, depending on where you will allow your rats to roam.
Tips for rat-proofing:
- Make sure you do not have any rat/mouse traps or poison anywhere in the house!
- Hide all of your wires, not just some of them - ALL of them. Rats love chewing through wires. Use tubes around your wires to protect them such as PVC tubing or electrical tubing (found at home improvement stores)
- Avoid leaving your windows open (even with screens) when your rats are out of their cage. They may chew the screens and escape.
- Make sure all doors leading outside are always securely closed, so no rats will escape.
- Rats love to make nests and chew up laundry piles on the floor or even in the basket, so try to have your clothes and bedding out of reach.
- Put all pills, medicines, lotions, perfumes, make up, soap, super glue, glue, and all other hazardous materials out of reach from the rats, rats are curious and will try to chew through many things, especially items that have a scent.
- Keep the toilet seat down to prevent rats from jumping in.
- Make sure all your heater and air conditioning vents are in place and cover up any gaps there may be.
- Cover up any gaps there may be around drain pipes or under sinks to prevent rats from getting trapped or escaping into the walls.
- Some rats will chew through mattresses and/or box springs. Try placing a bottom sheet around the bottom of your box spring mattress to add an extra layer of protection.
- Use cardboard to block off areas you don't want your rats getting into.
- Beware of the other animals in the house, some large animals like dogs or cats will hurt your rats.
- Rats love to chew off remote control buttons and cordless phone buttons. Try to keep your remotes away from the rats or flipped upside down to protect the buttons.
- Do not leave packages of cookies, bags of chips, boxes of crackers or food items unattended, your rats may find them and eat them all which could cause medical problems.
Play
As a social and intelligent animal, rats love to play. Inside the cage, toys can include an exercise wheel, levels, ramps and tubes.
Outside of the cage play can include training sessions. Rats learn quickly. Using positive reinforcements such as treats and praise will ensure that your rat is eager to learn. The mental stimulation of learning is very good for a rat’s curious, intelligent nature.
Keep your training sessions between 10 and 15 minutes. Never punish your rat if it doesn’t perform. To reinforce the behavior you want use treats or praise. For example, call the rat’s name. When it comes to you give it a treat while saying “yes.” Training is a simple matter of repetition and reinforcement.
Some Training Activities
- Coming to its name
- Maze running
- Rope walking or climbing
- Agility courses
- Retrieving articles
- Standing on hind legs
- Harness & leash training
- Roll-about Ball training
- Obstacle course running
Bonding
While rats are extremely social and should always live in a pair or group, it important to properly introduce rats to each other. Never simply put rats who don’t know each other together.
If you are introducing a new rat to rats you already have it is best to quarantine the new rat. This will ensure the new rat is not ill. Quarantine should last a minimum of 2-3 weeks. If the new rat shows any signs of illness take it to the vet. Quarantine will start again after the rat has no more symptoms of illness.
Alleviating scent
In most situations reducing or masking the rat’s natural scent will make the introduction easier. Try using a dab of an aromatic substance, such as vanilla extract, on the rats’ rumps to mask the scent.
Neutral Ground
Introduce the rats in a neutral area to avoid territorial behavior. Do not choose an area where the resident rats play or free roam. Some good places for introductions are the bathtub, the kitchen table, the bed, or a counter top.
During the introduction supervise the rats. The introduction may be a series of short visits or one long one. If an introduction is going well you can leave them together for several hours to give them more time to adapt to each other. Try to always end the time on a positive note – both rats receiving a treat or praise.
If the initial meet goes well, continue to have “rat dates” as often as possible, ideally every day, in a neutral area. Build up the length of time the rats spend together until they can peacefully co-exist for several hours at a time.
Living Together
When expanding your group it is essential to provide them with a cage that is big enough. A cage that is too small can cause aggressive behaviour.
Before the rats are moved into a cage together clean it well to remove any scents. Use new bedding, new towels, new food, fresh water, and make sure all cage accessories are clean and scent free. Sometimes rearranging the accessories will help to keep the rats from being territorial.
Learn how to deal with specific bonding issues by visiting this link: http://ratguide.com/care/behavior/introducing_rats.php
In order to create our rat guide we used the following sources:
www.ratshackforum.com/
www.afrma.org/rminfo1.htm
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