# Giving rats Honey



## kenzierey

I have four rats, two boys, two girls. They are all about 9-10 weeks old. The boys almost definitely have a URI. The girls seem better but they are a little sneezy. I heard of honey being somewhat of a natural antibiotic so I tried giving them the tiniest amount because their vet appt isnt for another week. The girls absolutely loved it and went crazy for it. The boys, on the other hand, reacted weirdly. They would get close to the honey and then as soon as it touched them or they smelled it they darted to another spot in their cage and would start like digging into the fleece on their cage. There was no bedding for them to dig in but it just looked like they kept trying to dig into the bottom of the cage. And they would stomp their front feet. It was so weird. Is this a bad reaction to the honey? They avoided it after both trying once so i never tried again. I just thought it was so weird that both of them did the same exact thing and that the girls loved it but the boys reacted this way. Can anyone tell me why they did react the way they did?


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## nanashi7

Make sure the honey is RAW.

Rats aren't fans of sticky things touchin them, and my rats love honey and hate it at the same time. They'll spend hours after honey grooming it away.


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## kenzierey

nanashi7 said:


> Make sure the honey is RAW.
> 
> Rats aren't fans of sticky things touchin them, and my rats love honey and hate it at the same time. They'll spend hours after honey grooming it away.


It is raw honey. I just think its so weird how the boys react. Maybe I'll try to get a video later. But they both stomp their feet and freak out. Is this a normal reaction for a rat to do if they dont like something?


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## Mike&Sully'sMummy

I just bought some Manuka Honey as it's meant to be good for rats. Not sure what my boys are going to make of it. It is weird that your rats freaked out so much and I'm not sure why they would, but it could just be they didn't like the stickyness. I'm sure it's nothing to worry about though.


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## Urithrand

Be very careful with giving your rats something so sugary, especially the girls as it can encourage mammary tumours.


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## cagedbirdsinging

Urithrand said:


> Be very careful with giving your rats something so sugary, especially the girls as it can encourage mammary tumours.


Where did you get this information? Sugar doesn't cause tumors directly. Tumors feed off of sugar and sugars should be carefully monitored for any rat, male or female, with tumors already.

Either way, lots of sugar is not good, but it does not cause tumors.


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