# How do I choose a cage mate for my rat?



## Mochi42 (Nov 14, 2012)

How do I choose the right cage mate for my rat? Ive been wanting a dumbo, and our pet store is getting some of them in this week, but there is a litter of 2 month old hand raised fancy rats for adoption at a home close to my house. What is the best age to get to go with my 5 month old rat and how do I introduce them? Do I really have to have the new one quarantined for several weeks?


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## LightningWolf (Jun 8, 2012)

Choice the friendliest, and if possible the youngest (2 months is good, you want them under 3 to 4 months depending on your guy). I wouldn't get rats just on looks, ever.

as for quarantine, it's best to do at least 2 weeks. Best if in different air space, but if it's in the same house that is perfectly ok, just make sure to either wash your hands and change clothes between handling them or wait at least 3 hours or more between handling. It's best to do this that way if they end up showing symptoms of something you can treat them and won't have multiple rats to treat.

There are a lot of threads on here on introductions. Make sure to introduce them in a neutral territory first. if things go well, can take a few tries, put them in a neutral in closed area like a tank, small cage, or a cat carrier. If it goes well introduce them on your current male's play area. If things go well from here clean out his cage fully, and I mean everything, and put them both in. Don't let them out for about 24 to 48 hours for them to establish who is boss/alpha

Also I recommend getting two cage mates for him. that way the younger rats will have someone their age, and hyperness level, and you won't be in this situation when one of them sadly passes away.


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## Mochi42 (Nov 14, 2012)

Thanks! My rat is a female, though. Probably should have mentioned that in the original post. Sorry.


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## cagedbirdsinging (May 28, 2012)

LightningWolf said:


> as for quarantine, it's best to do at least 2 weeks. Best if in different air space, but if it's in the same house that is perfectly ok, just make sure to either wash your hands and change clothes between handling them or wait at least 3 hours or more between handling.


When you quarantine properly, an entirely different air space is required. This means that it cannot be in the same house as potential viruses will still be sharing the same air, rendering the quarantine mostly useless.


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## Mochi42 (Nov 14, 2012)

If quarantine is supposed to be part of the new rat process, how do the majority of people who get new rats do this then, since I am sure most people do not have an entirely different building or another home to keep their new rats for several weeks?


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

5 months old is a tough time for introductions with girls. In my experience girls that are about equal in size in strength have a best chance of surviving the introduction process.

As to neutral territory, we introduced out big fat tail dragging girl to her new roomie outdoors at night in a parking lot and they just hit it off right away. Once we got both home we kept them in the hallway together for several hours and we stayed with them and refereed, within a few hours they were sleeping cuddled together. That's what it looks like when it works... 

As to quaranteen, our new rat brought us mites. The young lady who we got our girl from even made a point to say she was healthy (not entirely true). They were easy to eliminate with revolution. The mites would have made it through quaranteen as the new rat was pretty much resistant to them and never showed any symptoms even when our old girl got the scabs. 

For the most part rats you get from private families or even pet shops are pretty healthy. Both commercial breeders and private families have a vested interest in preventing and protecting their ratties from nasty viruses. Mites however are a problem in the US. As many rats are sold as snake food, stores with a mite problem are loathe to treat their rats and possibly make someone's very expensive reptile sick or worse yet kill it. My local pet shop turns over more than 100 rats per week and they pretty much stay ahead of the mites by moving the rats out before they show symptoms. Oddly enough I've gotten rat pups there that didn't have mites, but at this stage of the game would treat any new rattie just to be sure or treat all of my animals once the pup gets old enough.

Oddly, once someone reaches a certain number of rats or starts moving rats in and out of their home, the odds stack up against them. Whole ratteries and rescues have gotten wiped out by disease. I've seen this with tropical fish too. A person with a few fish can go a lifetime without ever seeing a sick fish, whereas once you have multiple aquariums and a few hundred fish, almost every fish you bring in seems to come with something nasty and without quaranteen just about every new fish breeder gets wiped out at least once. 

Quaranteen is always a good idea, but when it comes to mites they might not show up in the first few weeks and when it comes to other illnesses, they are pretty uncommon in most parts of the country. If you see sick rats or other small animals nearby or among those you are choosing from, avoid the whole bunch. Can you skip quaranteen, the answer is usually you can... but there are risks. I suppose it's like saying can you back out of your driveway without looking backwards, you know the layout of your driveway and if you live on a quiet rural side street most of the time you can, fact is I've done it. But every once in a blue moon there's a kid behind you or a car coming and things will end badly. I'd suppose those are about your odds.


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## Mochi42 (Nov 14, 2012)

Another fact that I left out that may be of value, she was with other rats for the first 4 months of her life or so.

*and thanks for all that info!


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## Mochi42 (Nov 14, 2012)

New cagemate found! Aprox. 3 month old female dumbo. No name as of yet.


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## LightningWolf (Jun 8, 2012)

Cute, females tend to do better when both are around the same age and/or over 8 to 12 weeks for some reason, so she is the perfect age.


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