Pets Rats

[Chickerdoodle13]

I've heard that males tend to dribble a lot more than females. Is that true? Not that that would be a huge turn off for me but that has been the general consensus among people when I ask about having rats as pets.

Also do rats smell less than mice? A room mate in college had two mice and they were stinky! I love all animals but these had me gagging at times.

Mice also need companions so I wouldn't get a single mouse either. I find that rats kept alone just become depressed and tend to live shorter lives. A second rat wouldn't take up much additional room though.

Have you looked into crested geckos? I got one and it is the easiest thing to take care of. I can also hold him and play with him (maybe not as cuddly as a rat but still a lot of fun!) they don't eat live food and I get his food through amazon.

 

[punk-a-doodle]

My females actually tend to be the ones that dribble strings of tiny urine droplet! Sometimes I get a female who doesn't, or a male who does, but mostly it is my girls.

I have never been turned off by the odor from my rats (some do find the smell of male rats to be unpleasant though), but the odor from male mice has always been very strong and unpleasant to me. Female mice in numbers are much the same, but my pair of female mice never bugged me smell wisw. Best thing to do is to go into different stores/friend's homes and really get a whiff from different species of both sexes, because smell preferences vary so widely.

 

[xchairity_casex]

prs an con of males and females:

MALES: are a bit smellier over-all, though, i have all of my rats in my basment and if you took someone blindfolded down there-they would never know rats where there as their is NO smell. i use newsppers and clean th cages daily or every 2-3 days (depending on how busy my day is) plus my rats all use litter boxs for the most part, i take plastic boxe-layer smoth larg river pebbles along te bottom and hey willgo potty in it, then i wash the rocks ff daily.
males coats are a bit harsher to the touch then females, bt males are more laid back, squishes who enjoy being held and cuddled and often times fall asleep in your lap.


FEMALES:
Females are smaller, quicker smarter and over-all more active, they dont smell s much as males and ive found emales need more space and more entertainment thn males do. i would probably be able to house males in a cardboad boxwithout them ever escapeing! females are more apt to chew and needs much more mental simulation to stay happy. females can be jsut as sweet and affectionate as males, they just tend to do it in spurts, as in run off to play then come back to be pettedthen run off to play.


While i personally perfer males, my favorite of my bunch now is myfemale Wiry, as shes the sweetest irl i have ever owned, shes more ffectionate towards me then my cats! she loves to be held and played wih.

 

[Fluffypuffy587]

Yeah I can kind of see where you are all coming from.

Cuppycake I do understand about not buying things from a mill type setting. The big type pet stores dont really worry about health but numbers and money. So yeah I always try to go to my local pet store instead of petco and things like that. I have a really nice pet store near my house. This one only buys pets from local breeders. They all look very healthy =)

Well I cant help myself but luagh. Parents amaze me sometimes. I was just casually talking and mentioned about getting a rat for a pet to my Mom. I said you know I really dont think I want 2 just because I really wanted something smaller. Something way smaller then my rabbit. And If I got 2 well I would better off getting another rabbit. well she wasnt faceing me then she turned around and said it will be fine if you get one. I had one as a kid and it was nice. Well I was like what!? lol you never told me you ever had a rat when you were a kid 0.o. And she said yeah I didnt want to encourage you. And I said yeah what do you mean by that. And she said because you have enough pets. lol..
By what I see rats are friendly like rabbits and vocal/needy like guineapigs. But then again when I let my bunny out she is always dropping party bombs on the floor haha

I didnt know mice stunk that bad =/. kind of makes me veer away.

Oh and about the bedding for rats. Yeah I was actually thinking about bedding. and if I remembered the best was the tree based recycled bedding. sort of resembles wadded up paper towels or something. its soft and non toxic. For my rabbits drop pan I use the wood based pellets the same thats used for horses in stalls. its expensive but in my opinion its way better then the clay. just because it does a better job of keeping the urine smell away, that and it doesnt have harmful dust. rodents are sensitive to that sort of stuff.

What about the confetti bedding? or is that more for hamsters?

And yes I have to admit hamsters are very stupid. but they are kind of funny because they are so dumb sometimes.

And already hands down decided a boy. Ive had girl everything. so a boy is a change of pace

 

[cuppycake]

I used to get Yesterday's News bedding. It's pelleted recycled paper and is mostly marketed toward ferrets, but I found it to be the best. No dust, they couldn't dig through it and kick it out of the cage, and it absorbed moisture and odors really well. Pelleted aspen would be my next choice.

My rats loved hammocks. It's buy scrap polar fleece from craft stores and use paper clips to poke through the corners and hand from the cage bars. If you're industrious you can easily sew a pocket into them for extra snuggling

 

[jak2002003]

prs an con of males and females:

MALES: are a bit smellier over-all, though, i have all of my rats in my basment and if you took someone blindfolded down there-they would never know rats where there as their is NO smell. i use newsppers and clean th cages daily or every 2-3 days (depending on how busy my day is) plus my rats all use litter boxs for the most part, i take plastic boxe-layer smoth larg river pebbles along te bottom and hey willgo potty in it, then i wash the rocks ff daily.
males coats are a bit harsher to the touch then females, bt males are more laid back, squishes who enjoy being held and cuddled and often times fall asleep in your lap.


FEMALES:
Females are smaller, quicker smarter and over-all more active, they dont smell s much as males and ive found emales need more space and more entertainment thn males do. i would probably be able to house males in a cardboad boxwithout them ever escapeing! females are more apt to chew and needs much more mental simulation to stay happy. females can be jsut as sweet and affectionate as males, they just tend to do it in spurts, as in run off to play then come back to be pettedthen run off to play.


While i personally perfer males, my favorite of my bunch now is myfemale Wiry, as shes the sweetest irl i have ever owned, shes more ffectionate towards me then my cats! she loves to be held and played wih.

Thats good information - and is funny its almost like human male and females!

The best bedding I got was called Bio Cat O lite. Its a kind of cat litter, but safe for small animals. It was in a big green paper bag, and cheap. It was made from recycled paper and had a really nice pine smell. It stopped ALL odors and I only had to clean the cage out with my 3 rats once a week. (but I cleaned the dirty corners out daily). It was also not expensive and its bio degradable.

The other paper confetti bedding was the worst! That make the rats cage smell bad, and it could not absorb all the urine and moisture in the poops, so there was smeared up poop stains over everything.

The pine shavings made my rats sneeze and wheeze all the time so I stopped using it.

The wood pelleted cat litter was too dusty and heavy and I did not like it.