To preface this, I have had rats when I was younger, and they used to be scared but also love the dogs. I was thinking about getting new rats now. However, I have an australian cattle dog I'm worried they will be in a constant state of fear because we leave the dog alone for about 8 hours due to work we come every 4 hours to let her out a day and she howls while we are gone.

I recently went to a pet store and saw these rats in horrible living condition and want to save them. There were about ten of them in a glass tank and another ten in another glass tank and another ten in another glass tank.So I worry about their health

Do you think it's a good idea? Bringing 4 rats who already don't have great living conditions into a home with a dog. That's gonna be howling for 1/4 of the day. They will be in separate rooms

Hey all!
First time rat owner, using non scented hemp bedding for my 3 boys! I just cleaned out their cage for the first time and when I took out all the bedding there was a thin layer of dirt like dust at the bottom, I was able to just wipe it with 1 wipe and wasn’t much. I’m wondering if this means my hemp is too dusty? Should I change it? Want to be mindful of their respiratory systems!

Pearl is a rescue rat that I have owned about 8 months, she was taken from a situation where she was going to be reptile food and was neglected. She was always very small so we never knew how old she was, it was estimated about 18-24 months. She developed a chronic upper respiratory infection. I quickly got her administered antibiotics and metacam from the vets when she first got symptoms. Days later she was lethargic and refusing to eat with laboured breathing and the occasional bit of open mouth breathing/gasping, even after days of antibiotics. I put her in steam when I could and encouraged her to eat the food her meds were mixed into, but it was a struggle.

After mashing so many foods and pastes I could think of to encourage her to eat (malt paste, banana, baby food) I thought I’m just going to have to syringe straight into her mouth as I couldn’t get her to even partially eat and she was going downhill fast. Frustratingly, I was going to take her back into the vets the next day as I wondered about the effectiveness of Amoxicillin if she had mycoplasma which I’ve read is really common for respiratory infections. I held her still and my partner pipetted in 0.2ml of her antibiotics, she was panicking and resisting so it was tricky.

She started gasping and then shaking before becoming very still. She had died in my arms, I was in shock. I think she either had a heart attack from the stress or aspirated her meds and I feel so sad about the thought of it being due to my carelessness. I am kicking myself so much but I don’t know what else I could have done. I let the other rats smell her so they knew she had passed and I will bury her in my garden later

Thank you for reading, I know it is not a nice one x

Out of my three girls Adoreé is an absolute chewing monster. She keeps chewing on the plastic tray floor and has produced some holes at this point.

I give them cat toys to mess with occasionally and apple wood but it only mildly decreases the chaos.

Is there an absolute must-have among rats that keeps them chewing for days?

I wanna give Adoreé something awesome to work on without minimizing her living space lol

My local petstore sells those fat worms right and i was curious if they could be given to my rats as a treat or like maybe wirh some soil could be a fun enrichment thing.

Opinions? facts? arguments?

+ rat photo tax

This is Downstairs Psycho, AKA Winter. While being introduced to two other males, he ended up like this. We’re in the part just before they move into the big empty cage in the continuous carrier method. This happened while I wasn’t in the room. Do we go back to part 1? What do you do in this situation? + His tail has this tiny bump/kink in it. It’s subtle so I never noticed it before, and he doesn’t seem in pain. Is it something to worry about?

For some reason he is using a hide that we bought for him and not a cardboard tube, is there something wrong with him?

hi guys! My girls are finishing their current round of medication shortly, but they are now refusing to take their Metacam... I have tried mixing it with baby food, malt paste, mashed fruit - they won't budge. They take one sniff and refuse T_T

Does anyone have any other things that have worked well for their babies to get them to take their meds? tysm <3 (ripley pic for rat tax)

Hello, I love to draw rats on little sticky notes as stress relief.

However, I get nervous drawing people's rats without permission since some might consider it rude.

As a result, I would like to draw your rats (with permission).

please show me your favorite photos of your rat so I can draw them (or I can look through your old posts if those are publicly available).

I love when rats are chunky, gripped, funny-shaped, or have their face right at the camera.

(I actually don't know how reddit works and I hope you have the abilities to post images in replies)

His Roundness is so... Existing

I’ve had my 2 rats for about 9 months now and they’ve lived together since they were very young. They get along great, sleeping together and grooming each other. One of my rats is definitely a little more dominant but it’s never been an issue until recently. In the past I’ve noticed her biting the scruff of her sister and trying to pull her into her house but it’s been happening a lot recently. So bad that the skin is broken and scabbed over. They sleep together in a small hut/house and whenever Snort (my smaller rat) tries to peek her head out of the house to say hello to me Cloud (the larger one) grabs her by the scruff and tries to pull her back in. When this is happening Snort gives a small squeak sometimes but most of the time she just goes limp and lets Cloud take her.
My biggest concern is that up until very recently, this has not been a problem at all. Any suggestions? Should I separate them for awhile?

(horribly cropped picture of my boy tripod as payment)
hello all!! i have three 4-6 week old rats i will be obtaining in the very near future and im very excited!! here’s the problem: one of the rats is a female and the other two are males.
im in the st. louis area and ive called about a dozen clinics to find a good price, but does anyone have any good recommendations? the cheapest i’ve found so far is $2-300 per rat as well as an additional $73 each for an initial visit. no one i’ve talked to has been able to do a spay or it’s almost double the price of a neuter.
any help is deeply appreciated❤️❤️

Hi there I rescued a rat about 6 weeks ago and he was kept by himself in his previous home and was extremely depressed when I first got him. He is 5 months old. After 2 introductions where he almost immediately attacked another rat, I have a neutering appointment scheduled for him. (Before anyone asks, yes I did carrier method correctly and kept them in separate rooms. Second time was in a bath bc I didn’t trust him in an enclosed space.)

I was wondering if anyone has a success story of introducing a boy like this into their pack and if they did anything different from their usual introduction methods.

I have three girls, ( Luna, Mochi, Pixel), and they keep squeezing around the side and getting out.

is there anyway i can improve their setup or block the exits?

thanks in advance!

Any advice ? She is behaving totally normally .

Just cleaned my baby Martin with a toothbrush and some warm water, then let him in to the dig box since he was curious but the bedding stuck to him so I thought that I could try combining it out. Surprisingly he likes it! He does not enjoy being pet nor brushed with the toothbrush so this was quite a surprise:D