Their temperaments are so sweet

We have lots of pet rats. Tabitha brought each of them home from the pet store she used to manage. They were bred to be reptile food but their temperaments are so sweet that Tabitha didn’t want to see them sold as food.

Murphy

Murphy came to us due to a unique situation. He got out of one of the cages at the pet store when he was four weeks old and avoided being caught until he was six months old. He spent months chewing holes in everything. Rodent food bags, bird seed bags, and dog food bags all had to be thrown away because of his chewing. He also ate all of the superworms in the store! The owners of the pet store were just about to set up traps to get rid of him because he was costing them hundreds of dollars in merchandise every week. Tabitha told them she would take him home if he was caught alive. After a lot of attempts, Murphy was captured!

Tabitha brought Murphy home and put him in a secure cage where he couldn’t get out. While running free in the pet store, the only human contact he had was when someone would lunge at him and try to grab him. He was defensive and extremely afraid of humans for several months after Tabitha brought him home. After a lot of work, he’s now one of our more social rats towards humans. It’s really important that rats get socialization with other rats when they are young. Murphy didn’t get the socialization he needed when he was young so he has a hard time around the other rats.

An Unexpected Love

I never thought I would like having pet rats and mice. The thought of them made me really uncomfortable and gave me the heebie-jeebies. It wasn’t until having them in our home that I realized how amazing they are. They’re sweet, gentle, smart, and compassionate. They show emotions like happiness when they are playing with each other, they show empathy when their cage-mates get hurt, and they mourn the loss of cage-mates when they die.

Housing

We house the rats in Critter Nation cages. These cages are so strong and perfect for the rats. The seven female rats live together in a double Critter Nation. We have three single Critter Nation cages too; one for a female who is afraid of the other rats, one for Murphy, and one for the three brothers to share. We don’t use wood shaving for their bedding because the rats have sensitive skin that could get irritated by the shavings. Instead, we use fleece fabric. The fleece is reusable and lasts a long time (when the rats don’t chew holes in it). Tabitha likes to buy seasonal fleece to decorate the cages for holidays and special times. She uses two yards for each level of the Critter Nation cage and uses scraps as blankets for the rats.

Toys

We give the girls a litter box with aspen wood shavings that they (sometimes) use. Mainly, they just like digging and playing in the litter. They love spreading it out all over the place! We reuse boxes of every shape and size to give the rats lots of fun places to hide in. They love boxes from twelve-pack cases of soda. Each cage has a running wheel and lots of toys for the rats to play with. Their all-time favorite toy is this Kong dog toy. Whenever Tabitha replaces the old chewed up Kongs with fresh new ones, the rats get so excited!

Gone Too Soon

The average lifespan of a rat is two to three years. Our veterinarian told us about the sad history of pet store rats. Apparently, they come from long bloodlines whose only purpose is to be used for medical testing. That means they were never bred to be healthy enough to live long. We’ve had rats get tumors and despite veterinarians doing all they could to remove the tumors, they didn’t survive long afterward. We give the rats hemp oil when we notice tumors forming. We always keep the oil on hand because it is supposed to reduce the tumors and help with pain management.

Food

We feed the rats Oxbow rat pellets, fresh vegetables, and fruit (apples and blueberries are their favorites). We also give them lots of treats such as walnuts, plain Shredded Wheat cereal (the unfrosted kind), baby Gerber baby snacks, plain Cheerios, dog biscuits, and yogurt drops. They don’t like vegetables as much as the other food, but we still offer it to them.