# My darling little babies!



## Sdaji

Hello everyone!

My rats are so special! I thought I'd post pictures of them so that you can all enjoy seeing how cute they are!

I've found they love eating lot of things, they're so much fun! There are definately some foods they like more than others!

Enjoy the pictures and tell me how cute my rats are!      
8) 8) 8) 8) 8)


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## Forensic

Please don't pick them up by the tail... you could hurt them.


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## Sparker

They are very cute.


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## kaylaface

Very cute but mine are cuter. lol. http://www.ratforum.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=3587.html


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## Sdaji

No no no! Mine are the cutest rats in the whole world! Yours are pretty cute too though  You even have one of those cute little guys in your avatar!


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## lilspaz68

Hmmm...what bedding/litter do you have them on? They are cute but if they are on softwoods the cuteness might end up with sickness. 

that also is a very dirty enclosure, this isn't their cage is it? Just somewhere you put them for pics? 8O 

Rats _never_ have to be lifted by their tail, you can sometimes restrain by the tail if you grasp the very base. What you are doing is asking for a painful injury called degloving where the skin peels off the tail and usually the tail has to be amputated. Its nasty. 

I take it when I see 6 rats there that the females and males are still together. My oops litter (adopted from shelter pregnant) was 13 babies. You could have 40 babies. There is no way you can socialize 40 babies properly to make 40 sweet adults that won't end up in shelters or in snake bellies for temperament issues. Most true breeders would only have 2 litters at a time because of the socialization issue.

How often do your rats come out of the cage? How much time do you spend handling them?


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## jellybeanqueen

they're very cute. ;]
the pic of you holding them by the tail makes me feel queasy, though.
you shouldn't do that, you could hurt them. =/


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## rat_ratscal

i agree with jellybeanqueen, but they are adorable!!!!!!!!! they'd be adorable-er without the cockroaches


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## Sdaji

lilspaz: the breeder had them on wood shavings, so I've kept them on wood shavings while they're settling in. I'm in the process of transferring them on to straw (currently they're on a mixture). They were sneezing a lot when I go them home, I was a bit worried and contacted the breeder, he said they do that when they're on fresh substrate. Hopefully they'll be better when they're off the shavings.

They're not usually all in there together, that was just for the picture, at the moment there are two pairs housed together and one pair housed in another enclosure, they usually have stuff to climb on.

In the labs and animal houses I've worked in rats were picked up by the tail all the time without any problem. The rats don't seem to mind at all. I did one have a rat's tail 'deglove' as you put it, about ten years ago when I caught a wild rat, I picked it up by the tail, it bit me and struggled, pulling the tail out of the skin, which is all I was left holding as the rat ran away. I assume captive rats have stronger tail skin than wild rats.

Well, I've had them for five days now and they still don't look pregnant, so maybe they won't breed anyway. If they do I hope the babies turn out as sweet as possible, and most probably won't end up in snake's bellies, at least for a while (I plan to grow some of them up and keep them, what happens to the ones I don't grow up myself and keep for a long time is a bit less certain I suppose, but that's life).

I don't spend very much time handling them, they have each other for socialising and they've been selectively bred to be friendly, so you don't have to handle them as much, which is convenient.

rat_ratscal: The cockroaches make them look so sweet! They sit there holding them in their hands while they much on them like little hamburgers! It's so cool! The rats come up and grab the cockroaches out of my hands and run away to eat them  They try to steal each others' cockroaches too! Sometimes they rip them in half and share them!


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## Forensic

Straw doesn't really absorb much so it won't help for odor, perhaps you ought to consider an alternative.

Picking them up by the tail can harm pet rats as easily as the wild ones.

Most rats don't show pregnancy until they're three weeks along.

To be 'people-socialized' they have to be handled. Selective breeding does nothing if they aren't held.


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## Sdaji

What alternative might be good? Newspaper is a good substrate, isn't it? What about apple cores and/or egg shells? Although I suppose egg shells would be even less absorbant than straw. Maybe egg cartons would work well? I'm still pretty new to all this stuff!

Oh! I hope my rats don't ever have the tail skin problem! That'd be terrible 

Um... don't rats have a three week gestation period? I thought that's what I read somewhere. Wouldn't that mean you can't see that they're pregnant until they're actually in labour? How long does labour last for rats?

These ones had never been handled before I got them, the breeder said he never handles any of them except for a couple of his favourite ones, and he had heaps of rats, I don't think he could have handled all of them even if he'd wanted to. My ones are really cute and friendly, and they've probably only been held and played with about three or four times in their whole lives! He said he used to cull any which bit him or ate their babies, so that all of the rats he bred would be friendly and good mothers without needing to be played with. I suppose the generations of careful breeding have saved him a lot of handling time in the long run. I've contacted the breeder a couple of times, he has been really helpful and gives me lots of useful information.


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## Forensic

Er, no, something like aspen shaving, Carefresh, or Yesterday's News works best.

Sorry, that was meant to be TWO weeks, not three, my mistake, I apologize. Although some rats do spring the surprise labor on newer owners, it seems.

Quite honestly your breeder sounds like a very poor breeder.


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## Sdaji

I don't know if aspen shaving is available here, I have no idea what Carefresh. Yesterday's News? As in using the previous day's newspaper? I heard about using scraps like corn cobs and apple cores, is that a good idea? Now that I think about it, egg shells was a completely stupid idea! Would they eat them though?

Why does my breeder sound bad? He is a really nice guy and knows a lot about rats!


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## Hippy

They do have nice coloring. And in the third picture, on of your rats thats looking at the camera, looks kinda like it has a raccoon marking. Around his face.

Shouldn't this also be in the Meet my Rats section?


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## Vixie

Sdaji said:


> These ones had never been handled before I got them, the breeder said he never handles any of them except for a couple of his favourite ones, and he had heaps of rats,


That is reason number one he's a bad breeder. He has 'heaps' of rats that he can't take care of or handle properly.





Sdaji said:


> He said he used to cull any which bit him or ate their babies,


Just because a rat bit him does not mean it should be murdered, nor if a mother can't handle the number of babies she has does that mean that she should be murdered.




Find a new breeder, one that doesn't have tons of rats at once and that has information agreeing with what we say here. Picking a rat up by a tail is an emergency option only, and then it must be quick and as close to the base of the tail as possible. Not only is degloving a possibility but the rat will be very uncomfortable as it will have nothing to plant it's feet on and will result in an unfriendly and untrusting rat.


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## twitch

your breeder sounds bad because he does not handle his rats, he kulls the babies and has he has too many. i don't know what type of food he feeds or the bedding he uses but i woldn't trust what he says. also, if he supplies a pet store then he most definately is NOT ethical and has no way of finding out any health issues for the line. just because he has a lot does not mean that he knows a lot. even if he's had them a long time doesn't mean nuch, all that time he could be doing things wrong. 

rats can have a natural talent to be friendly but they aren't going to be all that they could be without human interaction. also, why would you get a pet that you aren't going to interact with anyway? what's the point?

yesterday's news in the name a pelleted cat litter. its old newpapers made into pellets. its probably the best there is for litter. its super absorbant and completely harmless for the rats. you can normally find this in feed stores or just about any pet store. same with carefresh which is another paper based bedding but is loose instead of pelleted. its better then the newpaper you get in the morning to read but doesn't normally last as lon as YN. 

corncob and apple cores would rot or be eaten and neither would be good at odor control. 

picking up a pet rat by the tail is harmful and completely unnesscary. they can loose their tail just as easily as the wild ones and they will begin to trust you less because you hurt them when you handle them. it's like being lifted up by a chuck of your hair, it hurts!


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## rat_ratscal

so you said that two of your rats live in that enclousure? look in the rat homes section to see pics of our cages, which are all good sized unless it says otherwise, good luck!

this cage is only big enough for 2 rats


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## Sdaji

Hippy: yes! I absolutely adore the raccoon markings! That girl has such a pretty raccoon face, but I'm told that it's just because she is moulting and that it will go away  The breeder's wife told me that sometimes they keep the raccoon faces when they're older and sometimes they don't. That one is my favourite, I hope she keeps hers!

Vixie: the breeder's rats are all friendly and trusting, even without handling, and they are all handled by tailing.

Maybe in a perfect world the bitey rats and the ones which eat their babies would be given good homes, but I think his philosophy is that they should never be bred and there are too many rats in the world for them all to have loving homes. It's not a perfect world and that wasn't his philosophy, so they were culled. Not everyone in this world is going to share your philosophy or mine, I can't change that even if I want to, and we have to accept that.

I don't need to find a new breeder in a hurry, I'm not racing out to obtain more rats, I already have six and apparently I might have another 40-60 adorable little babies on the way!


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## Sdaji

twitch: the rats don't need to be handled to be happy, they play with each other and seem to be very content little critters  Without any handling they're still very good with people, mine had never been held (other than picked up by the tail) and were immediately very friendly with me. The rats don't need to be handled to be happy, he is producing rats which are friendly pets if you want them to be, but will be happy even if you don't want to handle them. Perhaps it would be cruel to keep them alone, I don't know. I was flamed for putting them all together!

He certainly had a lot, but I don't think he necessarily had 'too many'; they were all well cared for, all very healthy. He gives them the type of food that laboratories give their rodents, which is designed to be a complete healthy diet for rats and mice of all ages. I suspect that there may not be enough protein in it for the reproductive females, so I'll supplement their diets with cockroaches. I'm told that the substrate might not be ideal and so I'm not using it any more, I'm using straw and egg shells.

rat_ratscal: My rats would be so jealous of that house! It looks like so much fun for them!


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## Forensic

Straw and egg shells sound HORRIBLY uncomfortable.


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## Sdaji

Really? I thought the straw was great! They make really neat nests out of it, they can sort of build little rat houses! They're sort of like bird nests, but they put little roofs on them so they're completely enclosed. It's so much better than the sawdust, and they don't sneeze any more! I was so upset about the sneezing, they seemed really distressed, I nearly started crying when it had been going on for a few days. When I picked them up they were sneezing all over me, really wet yucky sneezes  It's all gone now that they're on straw   

The egg shells do seem pretty stupid, but I was told that they were really good. Seemed strange to me too! They just sort of ignore them, so I think I'll stop using them. They do chew them up sometimes and I'm told that it's good for them because they'll eat some and get calcium. Maybe I'll just give them a few egg shells for calcium and stick to the straw. Have you tried straw? They really do seem to love it!


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## Forensic

Straw doesn't absorb much and it molds and can be hazardous. If a rat is on a good diet it won't need to eat egg shells.

I much prefer an appropriate diet and fabric bedding with a nice litter box.


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## rat_ratscal

oh thanks sdaji, it is much better now if you look at my post new litter box, new decorations, new wheel! or something like that, its better there


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## magickat

It pains me to read about the choices you are making for your rats.
Really, i feel like crying. Especially when I think about all those babies on their way. :'(


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## Sdaji

If the straw goes mouldy I'll definately try something else. Maybe the corn cob idea. I tried the apple cores, but they went slimey and smelly  They did love picking the seeds out though. Other than mould, how can straw be hazardous? I haven't seen any mould so far, touch wood. They really seem to love it.

Fabric bedding sounds expensive! Egg shells can't hurt them, can they? If I let them have them, it can only help, right? Can they actually be trained to use a litter box? That's incredible! How do I do that?

rat_ratscal: wow! Your rats are so lucky! They must be the luckiest rats in the world! Mine are still the cutest though!  

magickat: My rats are happy! You should see them! I may not be the best rat keeper in the world, but I'm doing a good enough job to keep them happy, don't worry  I'll make sure I give the babies the best care I can


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## reachthestars

Fabric bedding is often cheaper in the long run because it is reusable. It's even better if you buy the fleece on sale like many forum members do. That cage in your picture is much to smallf or even one rat to live in, so I sincerly hope you'll get them a new one (two actually, and even more than that as all your females are probably pregnant...). Rats need atleast 1.5 cubic feet of space each, but 2 is better for them. They also do much better in wire cages with levels, as it's better for their breathing.

If you're looking for an excellent bedding I would recommend Yesterdays News. It's a recycled newspaper bedding that is excellent for absorbing smells. Also a good choice would be Carefresh or aspen, or even woodstove pellets you can buy at any hardware store. Straw is a bad bedding, as it doesn't absorb any odors and can also bring mites/lice to your rats. 

How exactly do you know that your rats are happy? And how do you know they won't be happier if able to spend time interacting with you? Most rats you see in petstores don't look miserable either. Hey, they play, run, jump, eat and sleep, right? Rats adapt to their situations, and it doesn't mean that they can't be even happier if they're handled. Most rats do truely enjoy human contact, and thrive with it. 

If you want pets that don't really need to be handled, why in the world would you get rats? It seems as though hamsters or fish would be a better option for you currently.


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## reachthestars

Sdaji said:


> If the straw goes mouldy I'll definately try something else. Maybe the corn cob idea. I tried the apple cores, but they went slimey and smelly  They did love picking the seeds out though.



8O 8O 8O 8O 8O . 

Apple seeds contain cyanide, which can be highly toxic to rats. They're actually no good for us either, but we're normally fine because we don't get a chance to chew them, simply swallow them whole. Rats chew them and release cyanide into their bodies. This has been known to kill rats. Please don't feed them apple cores!


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## Sdaji

Oh no oh no oh no!    I hope my rats don't die from cyanide poisoning! :'( How stupid of me! I knew they were poisonous but didn't think of it when I put them in! A person can eat a few with no ill effects, a few more and they'll feel a bit ill. Little kids can have problems from eating them... a rat is tiny, it wouldn't take many to cause problems! Eek!

They seem fine! Hopefully there will be no problems. No more apple cores for them!


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## madeittothemoon

Sdaji said:


> Oh no oh no oh no!    I hope my rats don't die from cyanide poisoning! :'( How stupid of me! I knew they were poisonous but didn't think of it when I put them in! A person can eat a few with no ill effects, a few more and they'll feel a bit ill. Little kids can have problems from eating them... a rat is tiny, it wouldn't take many to cause problems! Eek!
> 
> They seem fine! Hopefully there will be no problems. No more apple cores for them!


Maybe it would help if you did a little bit of research on pet rats? There are a lot of wonderful websites out there that have great advice.


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## taralyncouture

Okay why is no one screamimg by now?! This is obviously animal neglect. Excuse me, but anyone who is that ridiculus to come onto a forum of people who know about rats and insits that their rats are taken care for when they are obviously not, needs help. If you slept on straw and egg shells would you be comfortable? and the living arrangements? Do you have no common sense? I am a fairly new rat owner but I have enough common sense as to raise animals healthly. And really, get a new breeder I know more than the fools. Your rats my be cute but they are obviously not taken care of properly, I am just terrified for those poor babies. Please just look for homes for all of your rats unless you can take advice from people who know how to take care of rats.


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## cjshrader

Honestly I haven't been getting on this person's case because I've had an incredibly hard time believing they are for real.

They don't do incorrect things in the way that a new rat owner would do. They do incorrect things in that they researched what would incense us the most and then do that.

To be perfectly honest I think they breed feeders and are just trying to rile us up.

Hence, I ignore it.

It would help, Sdaji, if you would show us more pictures of your rats homes and what you do for them.


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## Star

cjshrader said:


> Honestly I haven't been getting on this person's case because I've had an incredibly hard time believing they are for real.
> 
> They don't do incorrect things in the way that a new rat owner would do. They do incorrect things in that they researched what would incense us the most and then do that.
> 
> To be perfectly honest I think they breed feeders and are just trying to rile us up.
> 
> Hence, I ignore it.
> 
> It would help, Sdaji, if you would show us more pictures of your rats homes and what you do for them.


Yes I totally agree with the two previous post in that nearily all of what this person is doing, is really wrong. 
But I also don't believe this person is *really* doing all these awful things, and they are just outright lying or trying to see if we know our stuff or something. 
There are people out there with nothing better to do then try to get reactions out of caring people.

So yeah I would just ignore this person...


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## daisy184

WTF!!!!!!!!!
Im finding this hard to believe... its got to be a wind up...

Original poster, if you cant afford to buy bedding and the necassary things for your rats you shouldnt have them!

Putting them all in that 'bucket'.... keeping them in shavings is bad enough but its obviously sodden with urine and faeces too!, 

Whats with picking them up by the tail!?????... 8O 



> Well, I've had them for five days now and they still don't look pregnant, so maybe they won't breed anyway. If they do I hope the babies turn out as sweet as possible, and most probably won't end up in snake's bellies, at least for a while (I plan to grow some of them up and keep them, what happens to the ones I don't grow up myself and keep for a long time is a bit less certain I suppose, but that's life).


That has to be the most offensive thing,[ in fact the only offensive thing] that ive heard on here.

If anything i think you a case for the RSPCA, and if you are 'genuine' you certainly need to do one **** of a lot of research into your animals and start treating them properly.

All i can say is i hope you get bored with them very soon and hand them into a rescue!!!!


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## taralyncouture

cjshrader said:


> They don't do incorrect things in the way that a new rat owner would do. They do incorrect things in that they researched what would incense us the most and then do that.
> 
> .


I agree, I mean I never did anything somewhat similar when i first got fiona. EVER


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## AustinXAPMX3

They are extremely cute!


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## twitch

i'm sorry but i'm going to have to lock this thread. though valid points are being made it is getting very judgemental and that will not help matters. i do not want people yelling at each other which is where i see this thread heading. sdaji has introduced her rats, people have commented on them so the thread is done now.


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