[Red]

We were planning on buying two rats from a breeder in Autumn, we are on the waiting list, but now we've ended up with a single rat...hmmm.

Long story short we took in someone's rat, they didn't care who took him and were going to give him to someone who most likely wanted to feed him to their snake. We didn't know his age, name or if he'd been handled...all we knew was he was a boy and he was "all white".

Got him home into the cage...and from what I can see he's a Himalayan!! This just happens to be my favourite variety of rat I have wanted a Siamese / Himalayan rat or mouse for about eight years, but there are never any breeders nearby. And now he's here!! (I did say he was a foster...haha, oops )

He's only been home about 12 hours so I haven't tried interacting with him yet. He looks young (maybe 5 months?) and he's definitely a boy. Two bucks I had as a mid-teen were very fear-aggressive and bit me to the bone a few times, so we have thick gardening gloves just in case this guy is so inclined!

We have called him Archie (sorry the pics are very crappy)



He's always lived alone. Obviously rats need company so I need to read up a lot on rat intro's, for once he's settled and deemed healthy. I think a nearby pet shop that fosters and rehomes unwanted pets has a match-up service, so if they have any rats that might suit we can try that, or they can at least give us advice.

He's not been as nervy as I expected, he explored everywhere in his cage, and before Archie went to bed he came up for sniffles when my bf took Zoey out to the loo this morning



The cage is a little bare and doesn't have as many toys as I wanted, because we had literally a day to pick the little guy up and get everything ready! (don't worry I took the sticker off the platform)



Will try get some better photos soon...I can't believe I finally have a Himalayan rattie!

If anybody has any experience introducing rats to each other, I will take any advice I can get! I know introducing bucks is supposed to be the hardest. I have intro'd female mice, and guinea pigs of both sexes, but the only time I intro'd rats was two females when I was about 12, and we probably did everything wrong at the time.

 

[SueM]

Aawww! I miss my rats. They are so cool. I actually had my first one about a year before I got a second one. For the first couple of weeks, I kept the new one "quarantined" in a separate room. I kept an old work shirt by the new one's cage, and wore it anytime I handled him during those two weeks (and washed my hands before handling the other one). After the quarantine period was up, I kept them in separate cages next to each other for a bit. When they seemed relaxed with that set up, I'd take them in the bathroom and put them in the (empty) tub a few times to interact. I also let them play in the same cage for a little while each day. After a few days, I put them in the same cage, and kept an eye out for any problems. I didn't take the second cage down until I knew they were OK together.

 

[Red]

Awesome, thanks Good to read of ratties that have intro'd well to each other It's not too dissimilar to guinea pigs then...Archie has been up and about today, and he even (almost) took a treat from my fingers...he would have done if Zoey hadn't trotted over to see what was happening, meaning I had to drop the treat and distract her, anyway



I'll dig up some old pics of our last rats, they were from a breeder and they were sooo sweet! *wades through old photobucket pics*

Okay, Okto (roan). I'll try find baby pics because he looked completely different back then haha



Banjo the black hooded



Together



Baby pics Okto:



He started off sooo dark! We thought he was black in the first pics the breeder sent us...



Tiny Banjy



Rats make such awesome pets <3

 

[SueM]

Aww! Unfortunately, the only picture I have of my boys is blurry. My first one was Roach- a tan hooded. Then came Tuff. At first I thought he was a black hooded, but he turned out to be very dark brown. They've been gone about 13 years now.

 

[Red]

I had a tan hooded and a dark brown hooded pair of rats, also about thirteen years ago! The brown girl was a rehome, and the tan girl from a pet shop.

Today I switched Alfie to fleece bedding (he had been on paper based bedding). I have heard lots of good things about fleece for rats...I tried it once with guinea pigs and hated it, so we shall see! I've also worked on associating a noise with 'come get treats', and we're working on target training too. This way he still gets interaction and mental stimulation, but I'm not forcing handling upon him, and hopefully it will increase his confidence.

Brought three male gerbils home the other day, too. They're in a 100cm long barred cage with a 2 x 1 foot digging box full of substrate too. We have one blonde and white boy (Ed), one black gerbil (Kenny) and a Burmese (Murphy)...I'd never heard of a Burmese gerbil before, they seem to be pretty similar to Siamese (but darker) and are SO cute