# Rats and Mixed Drinks



## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

An old thread re-surfaced regarding rats and beer... there were some posts there that suggested that mixed drinks are OK... 

I recently met a young fellow, perhaps not the brightest bulb in the box, but he claimed he killed his rat by giving it soda... It's the first and only first hand report I've heard on this "myth" being real.

Still, I would strongly suggest that if your mixed drink contains carbonated soda, you might follow the "NO SODA" rule rather than the "alcohol is OK for rats in small amounts rule"....

Back in 1980, I met an alcohol researcher in college who was working on a funded project to prove that social drinking was bad for rats and by association humans... He was working with rats and he discovered that rats had a high tolerance for alcohol and that they often behaved more socially and calmly under the influence. In fact his work showed no ill effects of social drinking on rats and certain benefits he didn't go into. As his study was funded by a group that was against alcohol, he didn't expect to see it published. So a little sip of beer or other booze isn't likely to hurt your rat, soda and soda based drinks should most likely be avoided.

As to rats actually liking booze, Fuzzy Rat was a lush, she loved beer and hard liquor, not so much wine... She was the life of any party. Max won't touch a drop of any kind of alcohol... Go figure...?


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## Maddie (Jan 13, 2014)

I don't mean to be offensive to anyone, but I've never seen the point in giving animals alcohol or any drug related substances. I'm not downing alcohol since I am a social drinker on occasion, and I even smoked for years. Still those substances are not really good for people, so I wouldn't give it to a pet. Now, I have had my rats jump into a carbonated soda that I was drinking before, but I normally carry water when they are with me to avoid the temptation. I know with larger animals like horses they are very attracted to the smell of beer since it contains all those grains. I've seen guy friends give some to their horses (granted these are 800+ pound animals with one sip of beer) without terrible side effects. I would never do it with my own animals.


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## rileys-mom (May 26, 2014)

I agree with Maddie. I would not give alcohol to animals. I wouldn't give them soda either. My animals' diets are actually better than mine.


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## Mattsrats (Feb 24, 2014)

You guys are really great when it comes to your rats diets. Years ago I was part of another rat forum ..ratsahoy I think. Like %90 of the 50+ members. Would feed their rats entire slices of deep dish pizza, nachos, large mcDonalds french fries, KFC fried chicken, jalapeno poppers, fudge brownies....and even some would bake their rats a full size betty crocker cake with frosting for their bday. 
A large number of the rats were so morbidly obese that they look like footballs with feet and could barely walk.
What was the owner's excuse? "Thier lives are so short they deserve to be happy". They were devastated when their rats died around 12 to 14 months old.
That was animal cruelty if you ask me. I love my fuzz butts but they are stupid and will eat whatever you give them like walking garbage disposals. The only thing mine have turned down is scallions ...

They are dorks, they snatch anything offered then decide if they actually want it.

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## cammipooh (Apr 26, 2014)

I actually understand where people come from when they say they give their rat a taste. Rats have highly developed tastes like we do, so they should enjoy an occasional taste of different things. Saying you'll let your rat have a taste of sweets or something fatty isn't any better than letting it taste alcohol. It isn't giving them any ill side effects and much like us, they want to indulge in something that isn't the best for them. Like when people drink alcohol or soda, eat candy and foods loaded with fat and sugar. There is absolutely nothing wrong with letting your rat explore their palettes. 

Love, Cameron and Sneezes


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## Biku (Mar 12, 2014)

Mine like to indulge in unhealthy products ( though I definitely limit them to only a small amount of junk food per month). I once gave them a cupcake. Just one cupcake between 4 rats couldn't hurt, too much, right? Of course, the got bored and started rubbing the frosting on each other instead. Haha. As for alcohol, I've only given one of my rats any kind of alcohol. It was just a sip of an apple ale and he seemed to like it, but not as much as the 100% apple juice I usually drink.

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## Marie5656 (Jun 1, 2014)

OK, my husband is a beer drinker, but I am not sure I would let him give the girls even a taste off his fingers. But I do wonder about occasionally giving them a taste of flavored water. Not the carbonated kind, but the sugar free water enhancers like Mio or Crystal light? We bit use it. Do you think it would be ok to let them have a taste?


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## Maddie (Jan 13, 2014)

cammipooh said:


> I actually understand where people come from when they say they give their rat a taste. Rats have highly developed tastes like we do, so they should enjoy an occasional taste of different things. Saying you'll let your rat have a taste of sweets or something fatty isn't any better than letting it taste alcohol. It isn't giving them any ill side effects and much like us, they want to indulge in something that isn't the best for them. Like when people drink alcohol or soda, eat candy and foods loaded with fat and sugar. There is absolutely nothing wrong with letting your rat explore their palettes. Love, Cameron and Sneezes


I think the thing for me is I don't give my rats little tastes of anything like sweets an such. The sweet things my rats eat are fruits and maybe a tiny bit of yogurt. Like Riley said my animals eat healthier than I do and stay on pretty strict diets. Like I said I'm not judging everyone can do what they want but when a human makes the decision to consume something that isn't healthy for them that's their choice. They have the ability to weigh their options, and they know that item isn't healthy ect. Animals cannot really make that call for themselves.I own a Schnauzer that I adopted. When I hear about people giving animals a little of this or a little of that it reminds me of that first year I had her. We had company over and a friend have her "just a little pasta from her plate" or something like that didn't see it. The dog had an allergic reaction and spent two days at the vets under care. My dog is highly allergic to some substances and having just a little for tastes sake had her vomiting blood all over the place. I know it can happen with anything and animals can get sick even from their prescribed diets, but for me it's not worth taking the chance.


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## Phantom (Apr 4, 2012)

I've never given any of my rats alcohol simply because I only drink on occasion and with friends, and when I do drink I try to stay away from my pets because I'm a lightweight and known to do some pretty dumb things when under the influence of alcohol. (Don't we all? Lol.) The reason I try to stay away from them during that time is because I'm afraid something might happen to them, and it is because of that that they've never had a taste of alcohol. 

If I was to let my rats try alcohol it would only be a small taste. There have been many times when I have walked by their cage with human food and was unable to avoid Pastoolio's begging eyes so he got a crumb or whatever I was having. There have also been plently of times that one of my rats has even stolen food from my mouth and hands. I would imagine that if I was to walk by their cage with a mixed drink one day something similar would happen. However, I would never put them on an unhealthy diet or give them anything that would risk their health. 

That being said the only one who would not be allowed to have a single drop of alcohol would be Lynn. She already has some sort of a neurological defect, and I would not want to know what would happen if alcohol found it's way into her system somehow. However, if alcohol had the reverse affect on her and made her walk straight, not try to jump up walls, not jump from the highest possible points I might reconsider my thought.


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## cammipooh (Apr 26, 2014)

Well even in the wild, rats will find bits of food on the ground and even it being unhealthy, may eat it. I make sure my rats are on a well balanced diet, but rats are food driven by nature, so they get snacks often. I know for me, if I only ate a complete strict diet of what I'm only supposed to, I'd be bored of it. Haha. So I just figure what the hey and let them fully enjoy the highly developed taste buds they were born with. Haha. And if I were old enough to drink, I'd let them taste it. As it is for people, drink responsibly, so for any rat it's all in moderation and compensating for their tiny bodies.  

Love, Cameron and Sneezes


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## ksaxton (Apr 20, 2014)

I'm not old enough to drink, nor do I really have any interest in drinking. I think that if I was to have a drink though, and my rat was with me, Id let them have a taste. I don't think it's okay to give your rats an entire serving of something unhealthy like pizza or cake, but a tiny little rat sized nibble is perfectly fine. Like us, rats like to indulge a little too every once in awhile. I give mine little bits of my food all the time and it doesn't affect them in any way. 
My dad once had a pet goat who would grab an open bottle of beer and guzzle the whole thing, and it would get him drunk so he would get up on the table and then loose his balance and fall off. Apparently the goat also liked drinking bottles of Coke too. 


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## ratmode (May 15, 2014)

So, I give my rats a little bit of whatever I'm eating at the time as long as it isn't spicy, carbonated, containing citrus etc. - beer is the exception to the "carbonated" rule. I probably drink beer about once a week and I usually give each of the rats the rat equivalent of one beer. I let it sit for a while first to get a little flat - they don't seem to like cold drinks anyhow - before I give it to them in a little dish. They are CRAZY about it - they always try to steal the bottle from me for more! They seem to like ales more than lagers - maybe it's the hops? They will also drink wine if I offer it - I shouldn't have said I drink beer once a week because sometimes I drink wine instead - but they do love wine corks, they are absolutely crazy about wine corks.

An ex girlfriend of mine has a degree in neuroscience and her undergraduate research involved the mechanism of action of alcohol. Rats metabolize alcohol the same way humans do, and it has the same central nervous system effects - euphoria, depressed respiration, vasodilation, even suppression of ADH (anti-diuretic hormone). So, she investigated the ethanol by getting rats drunk, then sacrificing them and observing changes in their brains. But the interesting thing is that rats seem to have an extremely high tolerance to alcohol - in order to investigate the effects of ethanol on rats she had to inject them with it and, gram-for-gram/ounce-for-ounce, the amount that got her rats buzzed was the amount that would get a human blind drunk (adjusted for weight, obviously). I don't know if her research was ever repeated or even if its published yet but I'll ask for more details about it next time I talk to her.


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## cammipooh (Apr 26, 2014)

That's actually really interesting. The more I hear about the science of rats, the more I appreciate them for what they are. And the more passionate I am about showing others how lovely they are.

Love, Cameron and Sneezes


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Ratmode,

Your friend's experiment (or a similar one) was done at my college back in the late 1970's and early 1980's. The findings were precisely what your friend found. Rats have an amazing tolerance for alcohol. And they actually react much like humans, in fact they are much better drunks than most humans are. There's a reported improvement in attitude and social skills. The researcher I met actually suggested that there may be health benefits to rats consuming small amounts of alcohol every day. And yes, he also commented that it takes a staggering amount of alcohol to get a rat drunk (as related to their size). The study was funded by a group against alcohol so I doubt that that study was ever published either. It might be funny that millions of dollars are being spent to replicate studies that never get published and therefore get replicated every so many years. 

This would actually make a great deal of sense as wild rats often eat spoiled and 'fermented' foods. It would make sense that rats can metabolize alcohol well... it would benefit them greatly in normal survival situations.

I would usually give my rats that drank beer in the bottle cap, or let them lick hard liquor off my finger tip. At one party someone spilled their beer on the floor and Fuzzy Rat was first on the scene to sop up the mess, she also stalked the shot glass as it went around the table to get the tiny drop of tequila left behind after every shot... (you would think that some folks might mind sharing their glass with a rat, but apparently everyone found it amusing) The next morning when I tried to wake her up, I almost got bit, for the first time ever... so rats do get hangovers, but by 2:00 PM she was fine and even went swimming at the beach with us later that afternoon. Honestly, I tried to keep her from drinking too much but I wasn't always watching and there were several guests and she was very persuasive, so I can't say what it really took to get her hung over. But I'm thinking it was more than any rat owner, including myself would ever give a rat on purpose. I might also remark that she had a really great time and was entertaining people by doing some really nifty climbing tricks that she didn't usually do sober anymore at over a year old. She didn't fall so her balance wasn't affected in the least, even if her judgment might have been slightly impaired.

To be clear, I'm not recommending that people get their rats drunk, or even offer them alcohol. I just read on another thread that some folks gave their rats mixed drinks that might contain carbonated soda. So I'm not saying that booze is a good idea, just that the soda portion may be a really bad one.

There's never going to be a consensus in the junk food debate. One side will argue that bad diet shortens a rats life and makes it less healthy, the other that rats live short lives so why not enjoy it a little. I'm guessing that there's some compromise point where a little junk food won't shorten a rat's life or make it sick or obese while making it happier for the experience. So as the actual compromise point is likely to be hated by everyone, I'll stay out of this debate.


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