random rat post

[ratcreature]

I forgot about my coffee mug still having a rest in it, and apparently Linus likes coffee. I had to pick him up from balancing on the rim of my mug, lapping it up. Well, at least I got to him before he drank more than a mouthful, because I'm sure caffeine is not good for rats, also these guys really don't need to be any more hyper. As it is they've torn down a whole chunk of my wallpaper recently and are still trying to intermittently investigate the underside of my (glued down) carpet.

Comments

[derryderrydown]

There are times when I'm SO GLAD I have a hamster, rather than rats! So much easier! So much less intelligent!

[ratcreature]

I wish there was some super engaging rodent toy. I mean, they like chasing things up to a point, but I get tired of dragging string around long before they do (though maybe I should try one of these dangly cat toys, if I find a rodent safe one), and while they do have a ferret climbing tree, two large branches, a digging box, and a bunch of other smaller things (chewtoys, cork tunnels, empty carton boxes, newspaper shredder, cloth, some rope...it's not like I don't make accomodations in my room for them) to play with that is just still not enough, so they "play" with the rest of the stuff and try to chew on everything and get behind, beneath or under and into my furniture and such, or try to break out of the at least moderately rat safe area. (Unfortunately my bedroom doesn't have a door that separates it from the rest of my appartment so I have a wood panel barrier that they can try to chew on and through, jump over in death defying stunts if they first climb high enough on the other side and so on.

The main reason why I have male rats, even though they mark everything with pee, is that female rats are generally even more destructive, and they don't tend to get lazy with age, which I actually look forward to. My male rats have usually settled down into something less exhausting once they were past their rowdy teenage and young adult ages. But they are not yet four months yet, so they are still growing and want a lot of entertainment and stimulation.

[derryderrydown]

I think I was a bit spoiled with Honey because she was already an adult (just about) when I got her, so she's never been especially rambunctious.

[ratcreature]

I already get glimpses with Leo, who has very sweet moments when he dozes curled up on or next to me.

What I really wonder how lab rats don't go all crazy in these tiny boring cages they are kept in. I mean, I remember that film from a few years ago in which someone put a colony of lab rats in an outdoor area to dispute these claims that they are bred so that they don't even want to climb and dig and explore anymore, and they did not have precisely wild instincts of course (so they were kept in an area with a fence that kept predators out and food was relatively easy to find), but they found shelter, made nests, looked for food, climbed and explored. And actually the film maker wasn't even anti-animal experimentation, iirc, the argument was that all the data would be even more messed up than it already is from the animal/human differences, because they are kept in such awful conditions.

[astridv]

But they are not yet four months yet, so they are still growing and want a lot of entertainment and stimulation.

We had three one hedgehogs once. They were tiny and the mother had died so we were feeding them to be ready for hibernation. The feeding was the easy part. Young hedgehogs need a ton of stimulation to develop right, particularly different kinds of smells, so every day we were looking for something new to put in their den. Once they'd smelled something it was old news and uninteresting. But new smells, oh man. I've rarely seen an animal so excited. And they were really cute.

[ratcreature]

Hee, that *is* cute. Though it sounds like a lot of work too. I guess I could constuct more elaborate things for my rats to entertain them, like hide food in places, or build them new stuff constantly to explore and to challenge them, but I admit I'm a bit lazy about that kind of thing.

[astridv]

Our cat loves it when we scrunch up wrapping paper and hide her favorite crispy crackers in there.

When the roommate still had rats, she had aspirations to teach them how to run an obstacle course. She even built the course, but the project lost steam after a while.

[astridv]

A rat on caffeine. I shudder to imagine. :D

[ratcreature]

Yeah, it couldn't possibly end well.

I'm baffled that he's been trying to drink it in the first place. He has been sniffing at empty mugs before and licked at them, but I didn't think he'd like the actual stuff. I do put milk and a little sugar in my coffee, but it is still something bitter after all.

[hugglewolf.livejournal.com]

Inquisitive little beasties, huh? *g*

[ratcreature]

Oh yes, especially while they're young. It's a pain sometimes. Sort of how like a border collie is intelligent but also destructive if it doesn't have to herd sheep all day long. Young rats are not quite as bad, but I suspect mostly because they are smaller and you can lock them up for most of the day. (Mine are allowed outside one to four hours per day in the evenings, now that they are big enough that they can vanish into thumb-wide spaces anymore, but that's still twenty hours in which they can't destroy anything...)

[hugglewolf.livejournal.com]

*awwww* Evil geniuses in the making, methinks! *snuggles naughty rats*

[ratcreature]

I admit I'm feeling decidedly less snuggly whenever one of my rats manages to get somewhere I thought was made rat safe and demolished something. Like say by chewing on special hardcover comic editions that I had gotten signed with original artwork(!) at a convention. Or biting through the cable of my graphics tablet. Even ten seconds exposed to a rat tooth while you scramble to collect it can do a lot of damage.