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    The rattycorner.com Rat Care Guide
    The rattycorner.com Rat Care Guide
    The rattycorner.com Rat Care Guide
    Ebook73 pages31 minutes

    The rattycorner.com Rat Care Guide

    By Annette Rand

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    About this ebook

    The perfect introduction to choosing, caring for and enjoying rats as pets. The rattycorner.com Rat Care Guide is packed full of advice and ideas, written from a UK perspective but relevant wherever you live.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAnnette Rand
    Release dateApr 1, 2014
    ISBN9781311672667
    The rattycorner.com Rat Care Guide
    Author

    Annette Rand

    Annette Rand is a breeder of pet rats in the UK, breeding for improved health and longevity under the name of Brandywine Stud. She is a member of the National Fancy Rat Society, Midlands Rat Club and North of England Rat Society.A self confessed rat obsessive, Annette is passionate about enriching and enlivening their quality of life, and maintains the rattycorner.com website with details of her adventures in rat keeping.

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      Book preview

      The rattycorner.com Rat Care Guide - Annette Rand

      The rattycorner.com

      Rat Care Guide

      Annette Rand

      The rattycorner.com Rat Care Guide

      By Annette Rand

      Copyright 2014 Annette Rand

      Smashwords Edition

      Contents

      Introduction

      Sourcing your rats

      Choosing your rats

      Habitat

      Behaviour

      Introducing new rats

      Feeding

      Playtime

      Training

      Showing

      Breeding

      Life Stages

      General Care

      Health Care

      Further Reading

      Introduction

      These pages contain my own opinions on the best way to keep rats. I have owned rats since 2001 and have been breeding them since 2008, so I aim to provide the information you need to make your own choices. I own an extensive collection of books about rat keeping, and find many of them contradictory or just plain out of date. Standards of husbandry and ethics have moved on over the years, but all I can give you is my own experience, feelings and opinions.

      Rats are becoming an extremely popular pet, being easy to keep in a relatively small space and very engaging and friendly if raised and handled properly. Rats are not as low maintenance as many other rodents - they benefit from daily interaction with their humans and their cages need frequent attention, with a tidy up each day or two and a full clean out each week or so. I'd put their smell/cage cleaning factor at about hamster level - they need cleaning more often than gerbils, less often than mice.

      Because they are so sociable, it's unfair to keep a rat on its own. They need to have the company of their own kind because it's impossible for you to be with them all the time. Rats can usually be kept in single sex groups without problems, thus giving the perfect excuse for getting more than one!

      Wild rats are crepuscular, which is a word I really love. It means they are mostly awake during the hours of dawn and dusk. To be honest, rats are so adaptable and opportunistic that they’re only crepuscular when it suits them. Your pets will easily adapt themselves to your routine, and will soon come to know when it’s time to expect food and when it’s to come out and play.

      Some people find that they have allergy problems with rats, so it may be as well to handle someone else's rats before spending a lot of money setting up a rat cage. Adult males are possibly more allergenic than females, although neutering can help. Do also bear in mind that it’s also fairly common to become allergic to a particular cage substrate rather than the rats themselves.

      Sourcing your rats

      Rescue rats

      A rescue is an organisation or an individual that has taken in the rats with the aim of rehoming them. You may be required to undergo a home check before adopting rescue rats. I don't see this as a disadvantage because it shows that the rescuer is concerned about their wellbeing, although it can then restrict you to homing rats from rescues which cover your home area.

      Rescue adults vary from the well socialised to the traumatised and aggressive. You may find yourself paying out a lot in vet fees and spending a lot of your time on an older rescue, but often this is the time when you bond most closely. It's a gamble but very rewarding to take on adult rescue rats.

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