Rattie Owners??

[Featherwisp]

I have seen a few other people on here with rats, but I was wondering if there was a larger number of people on BYC who have or had pet rats.
Most people hate them, but only those who have lived with a domesticated rat know of the joys of these rodents.

So...do you have/had pet rats? Tell me about them! Post pictures if you like.




As for me...I have had about 5 (not counting an accidental litter of 14 from Angel, my pet store bought rat who was preggers) rats through the years. My very first rat was a hairless named Emma. She was the greatest rat you could ask for. She loved to be held, and would perch on my shoulder for hours, content as could be. Never bit anybody, but she did have a thing against cats when old age set in.
I miss all of them dearly, but after they passed from old age my parents decided to ban them because of short life-span.

I look forward to caring for them again.

 

[Goat_Walker]

I have two girls right now - a Hairless and a fancy. This is my second pair of rats and I love them! My hairless is just like my dead fancy Willow. she gets out of her cage and hides from me, but then around 4 or 5 in the morning ill wake up to the patter of little feet on my back and head. She will come over and actually paw me in the face after my back masssage and demand to be let back into the cage.

( its a four story condo

)

They are cute though. i love bringing them out when we have company over, I like seeing the reactions / teaching others.

 

[thebritt]

We recently lost our rat "Jack Man" - He was 5 years old!

 

[animalgirl2010]

I have been wanting to get a rat for awhile but I really want a hairless and I have yet to find any around here. All I see when I go to the pet stores are the feeder rats.

 

[theOEGBman]

I have 5, at the moment. I had 3 that I bought for breeders, and then my black hooded had a litter of 11. Nine were euthanized for feeders, but I kept two for future breeders. So now I have a chocolate berkshire, a black hooded and 3 agouti hooded. They're great pets, even my mom likes that, and that's amazing!

Junebug, my choc berk, is uber preggo right now too.

 

[ladycrotalus]

I have about 25-30 rats. Some are pets, others are feeders. I have normal rats, and dumbos. Agoutis, black berkshires, blue hoodeds, albinos, and black hoodeds. I think rats make awesome pets, way better then hamsters.
Mice are also cool pets, i got about 40 of them buggers, my breeders are pets and the rest are snake food.

 

[clickie]

I had two males, that I had to beg my parents for lol. Their names were Mario and Luigi. lol. They both lived for four years, which I think is pretty good. Any way I would take them to local parades and things like that. Loved to see how people would freak out, I don't see anything wrong with that because its okay for people to bring their little dogs there lol. Mine were just fancy rats from my friends petshop. I always feel sad when I see them just being sold for food, because most people do not realize that they make the best pets.

sorry pics a little bad its from a cell phone. lol.

 

[Featherwisp]

Wow! There are more posts then I thought there would be.

I got my rats from pet stores.

Ratteries are the way to go when you want a healthy, friendly rat. Breeders generally know how to care for rats and give them proper love/attention/food/cages. Pet stores dont really take good care of them, and feed them hamster food and mishandle them.
There were no breeders in my area, so I turned to purchasing from pet stores.
My hairless I actually bought from a pet store. They only had about 4 hairless, no furry ratties, and they were intended to be feeders. I spoiled her rotten- she got a little dish of the families left overs every night for dinner.

I could go on about my other ratties, but that would take forever for me to type! lol

Animalgirl, try looking up rat breeders, or "ratteries" in your area. You might find some people who breed hairless rats!

Goat Walker, I had an escape-artist rat named Basil who would get out of her cage every dang night! I would hear her chewing on things, or I would feel her run across my hand/sniff my face! It was hilarious, but a tad bit frustrating at the same time. She was a baby then, and we had cats, so I decided to set up a video camera to figure out how she was doing it!
She was the epitome of her species!

Oh goodness. I cant wait until I can find a job/move out...it would be wonderful to have rats again...*sigh*

 

[PintoPasoFino]

I have one rattie right now, the last one out of my bunch. She's a blue dumbo. I had hairless before, I found some dumbo hairless once at a pet swap. I also had a couple rex which I loved. Ratties make great pets!

When I used to live in a suburb, at Halloween the kids would come around trick-or-treating. I would put a rat on my shoulder and answer the door and then pretend to put the rat in their candy bags. That was always fun! Many people questioned if it was real or not.

Now I am on a farm, so no trick-or-treaters. Bummer.

 

[Featherwisp]

I used to do the same thing with Emma!

I loved to show her off, especially during Halloween. The reactions I would get from people were great!
People were afraid to touch her because of the whole hairless "eww" factor

, when in all reality it feels just like a humans skin, even a bit softer.