posting meme: rats and why I like them

[ratcreature]

mific prompted: Tell us about rats and why you like them.

I like rats, because they are social, smart, curious, cute, cuddly, adaptable and important for pets, you can keep them in a small apartment and still give them a decent quality of life.

Rats actually like living in human buildings, and do it voluntarily (if we let them), which in general we don't appreciate as the wild ones aren't useful like dogs or even cats, but still like to eat our food and gnaw and pee on our stuff, and also can transmit diseases (though apparently it wasn't actually their lice that brought the Black Death after all but mostly human to human lice).

So nobody wants "vermin" but the fact remains that they are well suited to living with us. They don't need a large territory or want to roam all the time or need to fly or swim (though some like splashing a little but mine mostly didn't try swimming when I offered) or would really like having a big underground warren (though they do like nest building and some like to dig a little). They like the same temperatures as we do.

And they are omnivores like us, so it's not complicated to feed them. There are a few foods they can't eat as they have some metabolic differences to humans, and some foods that aren't great for them, but basically they live on grains with some fruit, veggies (of the types that don't cause gas, brassica and legumes aren't great) and animal protein when they can get it, so more or less they eat like us. They also really prefer their food cooked and also fatty and sweet or salty, but then get the same health problems as humans and potentially tooth issues from too many soft things. But their inclinations are very aligned with ours when it comes to creature comforts. They themselves think human environments would be a good fit for them.

Of course most cages you see in pet stores are much too small, but something the size of a wardrobe with a couple of floors is fine for a small group. You can't keep just one and even two isn't great (because it's a real problem if one dies prematurely and introducing older rats is fraught), but three or four works well enough.

And the domesticated ones have been selected for human affinity and docility for long enough that early socialization to humans takes really easily. It's not as extreme as with dogs who lived with us for thousands of years, but pet rats like to interact with you, they recognize you, and they will be awake when you are and shift their schedule (though they don't appreciate erratic habits -- if you establish a schedule and then change it, they will sulk and mope, which I learned when I got some during school holidays once and played in the morning and then only got home in the afternoon once school started -- much disgruntlement ensued).

They are somewhat neophobic as they are territorial and prey animals, so unfamiliar places are stressful (the thing of carrying a rat around outside isn't great for most rats), but they are curious enough to like to explore and play with new things appearing in familiar surroundings. Especially young ones also really enjoy playing with their human, like getting tickled, running away, coming back etc. I never bothered much with tricks like fetch (which they can learn), but almost all will come when called (though bribery obviously helps). They are also really fun to watch with each other, and they cooperate for goals.

They don't get housebroken, though some claim theirs are, but I have never had a rat that you could get to only pee in designated places, and that is more problematic than their feces which is generally dry in healthy rats and not super gross. That they mostly prefer to leave in a few corners, so you can put up toilets, but they pee even in their sleeping nests, and they mark all paths with small pee droplets. So wherever you let rats out, you will have some amount of rat pee, including occasionally yourself.

Otoh them being small animals, the absolute pee amount isn't large, isn't super pungent, and unlike cats they do not vomit, and engage in no revenge peeing, but you want washable or wipable surfaces for rats. But otherwise they groom themselves meticulously (no rolling in gross stuff like dogs do sometimes) so they themselves don't smell more than a cat would in general (and much less bad breath, also they don't noticably fart), and it is really cute when they groom you socially, which they like to do.

Their major downside is of course that they are so short lived, with most living only a little over two years, and their health often declines before, so you often have to regularly medicate a rat for a quarter of their lives for one lung ailment or another and older rats frequently get cancers. So it's a lot of heartbreak to have rats, which is why I haven't kept any in quite some time.

(If you want to prompt me there are still many open days.)

Comments

[mllesatine]

This is probably a silly question but when you say that they like cooked food does this mean that you can feed them on your leftovers? Like a boiled potatoe?

[ratcreature]

Well, if you give them just your leftovers, it wouldn't be good for them, unless you select very carefully and also eat a lot unsweetened muesli or such yourself, but you can share your food as treats and your rats will love you for it.

For a while I tried to feed my rats on a homemade mix of grains and stuff but rats don't really like raw grain all that much, so they prefer the processed kibble type you find in rat food mixes to plain natural grain.

But they love cooked potatoes (also cooked rice), actually I've never fed a raw potato to a rat. They like them even better if you mash them with butter and cream. They will also steal potato chips from you. Sick or elderly rats will often still eat a little cooked food even if they aren't interested in their regular food anymore. The absolute favorite of most of my rats were fluffy scrambled eggs. Whenever I made eggs or potatoes or rice for mysrlf I gave them some.

You have to be careful with dairy, because they will get diarrhea from too much lactose, but they like unsweetened yoghurt a lot. Cheese is a bit too fatty and salty, though they also like it, but small pieces are fine.

Too much cooked food isn't ideal for them, because it's too high calorie (they easily get overweight if their food is too rich) and they need to chew hard things for their teeth and such, but if you let a rat choose between a raw carrot and a cooked one it will almost always eat the cooked food. Same if you offer cooked grain or raw grain. Fresh bread isn't ideal, but you can give them stale hard bread that works for gnawing etc.

I've never given mine spicy leftovers or such or more than tiny bits of sweets, but you can share many foods with them that make proper rat food (in that it's not unhealthy or causes them gastrointestinal upset, which you do not want either, rather than dry almost odorless poop pellets.. )

[mllesatine]

Thanks for sharing. Our family dog loves yoghurt, too. And my grandfather was always cooking potatoes (or just the peel?) and some type of grain in a big pot for his chickens. I wish I had asked him about it.

[mific]

Oh, fascinating details! I met some pet rats once at a friend's place and they were indeed very cute and curious.

[ratcreature]

They are really great pets, except that they die so soon. :(

They are generally really affectionate with humans they know. Most don't have very long attention spans, so they won't sit still on your lap to be petted for ages, but they will sit on you for a bit and gently nibble on you to groom you while you scritch them in turn. Most enjoy sitting on your shoulder or climb on you, and aren't stressed if you pick them up and carry them. And their fur is really soft and pleasant to pet.

[lilacsigil]

Rats sound so awesome but I can barely cope with the short lifespan of cats, I would never be able to deal with rats.

[ratcreature]

Yeah, it's really hard. They have as much individual personality as cats or dogs, you get to know their quirks, favorite foods etc. and love them so much, and then they die so quickly. I miss having pets but couldn't face it again after the ones I had around the time of my father's death died.

Unfortunately my lease doesn't allow for cats or dogs. You can theoretically ask for an exemption if you can make an argument that your pet definitely won't bother the neighbors and try to pressure them about it, but the chances aren't great. (The rental law got changed since my contract in that courts have ruled that blanket pre-emptive bans of cats and dogs for no reason aren't legal, but you still have to ask permission, and then the landlord has to give you a particular reason why you can't get one to deny.)

Chances of getting a cat allowed are slightly better, but a lot of people here think cats have to be indoor/outdoor or you would a cruel monster for confining them to just an apartment. So that would be another hurdle to getting cats.

[lilacsigil]

I'm Australian, so "cats have to be indoor/outdoor" is just bananas to me (not that people don't do it here, unfortunately, though it's becoming more and more illegal!) but then again they've been a massive ecological disaster here.

[ratcreature]

Yeah, in Australia the damage is more obvious. Here they aren't native either, but the native fauna did evolve with similar predators I guess, so their impact is more contested. It's really risky for the cats though, with all the cars and also things like rat poison. I mean, among my siblings' cats several died before their time, some less than two years old (my sister once even saw one of her cats get run over on the pavement right in front of her building) or just never came back and are presumably dead (cats have to be chipped here so it's unlikely they got picked up) and one even was shot (!!) with buckshot once (she survived and lived to over 16 eventually but it was discovered by a vet on an x-ray that showed metal pieces). My siblings still both think it's better they risk getting killed but can enjoy the outdoors. Personally I think they ought to look into spacious catios or such and make the indoors mire interesting with cat shelves etc. But even in shelter cat profiles you often see the stipulation that they will only give you that cat if it can go outside.

[pronker]

Hi, playing on DW this morning, only to come across your post on rats - they are so mellow! When we shopped for a small pet, the clerk reached into the container to show us a hamster, which promptly bit her. She mentioned that rats would be a better fit, and so we had rats for about ten years, one pair after another. Yes, their lives were shorter than our cats (15 years for one of them) but rats on the whole proved very sweet, riding on my shoulder, playing on the "carnival" rides I constructed for them, and so on. I'm glad to read your opinion on them.

I kept ours in the kitchen island, entirely devoted to them; we had several sets of brothers each time. We never had females.