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That is SO CUTE.  Do they eat the shell too? Good calcium I guess.
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May 12, 2012 01:50
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| # ? Jun 6, 2024 11:24 |
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Kerfuffle posted:That is SO CUTE. They definitely ate some of the shell, but there's quite a bit scattered about too. After all the excitement they all fell asleep. Typical!
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May 12, 2012 01:53
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Took my twins to the vet today (Brother and sister, I can tell them apart just fine but other people have issues. It helps that Butters, the boy, is double Ruby's size) and had to put them on ABs and childrens Benadryl. Poor kiddos. Though, it is cute to see them knocked out and relaxed for once, the Benadryl makes them sleepy  I need to get them a hardboiled egg. I have 3 27-month jumbos and 2-3 month kiddos, Would one egg do it, or should I do a couple more?
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May 12, 2012 03:20
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I have 2 adult ladies and 2 kids, and gave them 1. I'd say 1-2 would be a good amount, but I guess it depends on how hungry they are!
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May 12, 2012 03:28
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I made hardboiled eggs today and left 2 aside for the ratties. I've also decided that once I get my critter nation cage, I'm getting one last rat (isn't that waht everyone says?) and she'll be some sort of solid color, I'm really hoping to find a black or agouti. Wonder what I'll do with 3 cages and 4 rats, though? I know I'll be using one as a hospital/separation cage if need be, but I wonder about the taller one...
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May 12, 2012 14:39
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Invalid Octopus posted:Gave the girls an egg today for the first time. They had fun. Oh god. More pics of people's rats getting treats, please!Somewhere in the back of my mind, despite what I promised myself after the last ratling passed away, I think I know that I'll be getting rats again someday... I'm so glad this thread exists so I can live vicariously until that inevitable day.
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May 13, 2012 04:58
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Here's the new cage setup. I may swap the food area with the litter box, as they seem to like going in the back corner up on the shelf. They aren't using their hide hut very much at all, they seem to prefer their tunnel. Thank God that fleece tunnel is washable, they drag all their food in there. I pulled out a wet handful of green pea skins and chewed-up spinach leaves a few minutes ago. They're not eating very much of the grain I put in there, but they're all over the fresh foods. They love shell-on peanuts more than anything. I hid a couple in the little chew log thing and they had a blast reaching in there and pulling them out. Hopefully when their wheel gets here they will use it. Atahualpa and van Buren never showed any interest in the wheel, but then again, the wheel I had for them was really lovely.  
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May 13, 2012 20:23
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Oh my God! Rats and eggs! Fantastic! Conrad being derpy  Sup over here?  Being coy  Fear not about the empty water bottle, that is his play cage. If I don't play with him in a cage he runs all over my house when I chase him. He spends plenty of quiet time with me on the couch, but when he goes, he GOOOOOOOES.
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May 15, 2012 02:55
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Conrad looks like the world's happiest rat 
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May 15, 2012 11:44
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So I took a trip to petco yesterday to pick up some small aquariums for a breeding project I'm going to a attempt and I stopped by the small animal section to look at all the critters. They have a couple rats up for adoption, including this big, white rat. I fell in love so I decided to take him home. I set up a small temporary cage and planned to set up my much larger, multi-level cage later. I leave him alone to settle in. The temp cage has a small ramp up to a shelf that has a built in food bowl and I knew something was up when the food went untouched overnight. I took him out of the cage to see him walk and yep, he's got hind-leg degeneration and his back legs don't work too good. Poor old man, abandoned by their former owners because they were moving.  Anyway, I need a cage recommendation for him. The cage I was going to use definitely won't work. I was thinking one of these, probably the HH-95. Any other ideas?
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May 15, 2012 21:17
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Slinky Weasel posted:Anyway, I need a cage recommendation for him. The cage I was going to use definitely won't work. I was thinking one of these, probably the HH-95. Any other ideas? I had Martin's make me an R-660 powder-coated without a shelf and ramp for elderly rats. Then I sewed some really low-hanging hammocks they could pull themselves up into. Good on you for helping that poor fellow. I have a real soft spot for oldies.
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May 16, 2012 01:18
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Randomly discovered a medium-ish phase pearl at Petsmart today. I initially thought he was blue and didn't really pay him any attention (was just there to get some dog treats) but he happened to haul himself out of his igloo on my way out and I just HAPPENED to glance in his direction as I was going out the door. I wasn't planning on having 3 rats but lol I wasn't passing that up, so I grabbed him while falling all over myself because  ~pearl.~ I've only had one or two before and it was years and years ago and they were very, very poor quality and pretty much could have passed for mink. Pearl is up there with BEWs as far as colors/varieties I have inexplicable boners for, and due to the whole lethal pearl issue it's not something that's easy to find outside of the odd rattery, so I dunno what on earth Petsmart was doing with him buttttttttttt I'm really glad I decided to go buy dog treats today 
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May 16, 2012 03:16
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Here's my new old-man rat~  He's still pretty shy, he panics a bit when I try to pick him up but he's getting there. He still doesn't have a name, any ideas?
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May 16, 2012 10:08
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He looks like the biggest sweet heart. Maybe something that sounds old and dignified?
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May 16, 2012 13:32
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He seems like he would have some sort of title attached to his name. Earl of Ratbutt, Duke of Whiskers, or something equally silly. You thinking of getting a friend for him? I'd say to do it, but he's old and probably not so good at fighting off those young whippersnappers if they get rowdy...
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May 16, 2012 13:35
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I'm so sad. I woke up this morning and Amelie was dead. No warning, nothing, I fed them yesterday and gave them fresh water. I don't understand. She was only about a year and a half old and Squiggles is perfectly fine, healthy, running around. In fact recently Squiggles needed some vet attention to treat some kind of reddish sore/rash on her tail but Amelie has always been fine. She's always been a lot lighter/skinnier than Squiggles but I remember asking about it in this thread before and it was a dominance thing apparently, Squiggles has always been that. I don't know what could have happened but I'm totally heartbroken. e: I remember holding them both up to my ear last night to listen to their breathing and they chitter a lot but last week she fell asleep in my arms twice and boggled like crazy.
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May 16, 2012 19:14
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Sorry to hear that redjenova
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May 16, 2012 19:31
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This was probably addressed in here before, but I don't remember where. What is the optimum number of rats in a colony? I had a calculator tell me you can house 20 rats in the space I was going to allocate for them, and that doesn't seem right at all.
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May 16, 2012 19:52
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Atmus posted:This was probably addressed in here before, but I don't remember where. What is the optimum number of rats in a colony? I had a calculator tell me you can house 20 rats in the space I was going to allocate for them, and that doesn't seem right at all. Rats can be fine in as large a colony as they have space, they'll generally only have issues if they're overcrowded or there's an inordinately large male to female ratio. I've kept up to 18 same sex rats in one (really huge) cage with no issues.
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May 16, 2012 20:45
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GenericOverusedName posted:He seems like he would have some sort of title attached to his name. Earl of Ratbutt, Duke of Whiskers, or something equally silly. A title you say... That's a good idea, maybe Marquess of (something). I'll think of something. And I thought about getting some friends for him, but he has to be in a single level cage due to his mobility issues and keeping other able-bodied rats in a single level probably wouldn't be fun for them...
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May 16, 2012 20:45
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I'm sorry Redjenova.
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May 16, 2012 22:58
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How do you teach a rat that your face is not food? I took Donut out today and she loves being handled, but as soon as she's near my face she has a tendency to just chomp down. She also lunges for food presented through the bars of the cage, whereas my other two rats just take it normally and make sure they're not biting fingers. If it's just something I have to deal with, that's fine. She's awesome otherwise, I just want to let her know somehow that biting before thinking is a Bad Thing.
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May 17, 2012 03:05
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Keep her away from your face. Even the friendliest rat will try to grab a bite of whatever it can smell on your breath. It's also a good idea to always open the door before handing out treats, to avoid them grabbing at anything within reach.
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May 17, 2012 03:23
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That sounds like things I really should have thought of.  Generally she's not near my face at all to begin with, but I'll take extra care she doesn't hang around my general face-area when she climbs onto my shoulder. And I'll start doing the open the cage door thing starting tonight. Here is a picture of a treat I fed them today. It contained no raw fish, just as a note. All veggies and cooked egg. Wish I had pictures of them destroying it. (I did happen to place that one down with the cage door open though!) oh god why did i get wooden ramps these are so awful hurry up and get here critter nation
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May 17, 2012 03:34
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Thanks guys. Not sure I'll figure out what really happened to her, thinking about it just kind of sucks right now. But I was going away for the summer anyway and although they would have been okay and well looked after at my parents' house, I've got a better plan for Squiggles. A friend of mine (who I'm moving in with in August) has two rats and we're going to try and introduce Squiggles to them so she won't be lonely and will get plenty of attention while I'm gone. I don't want to get Squiggles a new buddy until I'll be here long enough to pay them both tons of attention. She has been sleeping on my feet on and off all day though, so at least there's that!
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May 17, 2012 04:17
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Bear Rape posted:How do you teach a rat that your face is not food? I took Donut out today and she loves being handled, but as soon as she's near my face she has a tendency to just chomp down. She also lunges for food presented through the bars of the cage, whereas my other two rats just take it normally and make sure they're not biting fingers. You can train her out of bar-lunging by not feeding them through the bars, and then handing them a lot of boring stuff (cardboard pieces, tissue paper, whatever).
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May 17, 2012 04:41
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Have a picture of Marley looking cute to cheer people up  Look at that fat bastard
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May 17, 2012 07:07
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We're doing supervised run-around-on-the-bed time with the boys, one at a time so we can avoid any mishaps. I really need to get a shower and go to work but my husband keeps bringing me rats!
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May 17, 2012 13:20
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RazorBunny posted:We're doing supervised run-around-on-the-bed time with the boys, one at a time so we can avoid any mishaps. I really need to get a shower and go to work but my husband keeps bringing me rats! This is a problem? 
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May 17, 2012 16:26
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daggerdragon posted:This is a problem? Haha my boss might think so... Leela came up when we had Joker out. My husband picked him up so there was less chance of anything bad happening. She didn't make any attempts, and mostly rolled around on the bed in front of us. I think she was trying to get Joker to play with her, it was very weird. I would definitely rather be at home cuddling rats than here at the office, believe me.
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May 17, 2012 16:36
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I've been admiring this thread for a while and after finding a huge rat cage used, I've decided to take the plunge and get a couple rats. My cage is 2.5 x 2 x 4.5 (l x w x h) but doesn't have any shelves. I'm either going to buy the ones made for the critter nation cages, or use coroplast. I'm also super open to any kind of enrichment, and want to spoil the heck out of them. Can you guys help me out with designing the interior? Also I've been researching breeders in my area and am trying to find ones that breed for intelligence and temperament since I'm already into clicker training (for my cat) All that I can find are just a few badly designed websites and inactive local message boards. I'm close to Vancouver, BC if you know any!  
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May 19, 2012 01:44
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A great place to find rat cage accessories is the bird department of any pet store. They always have tons of things that can lock to walls (feeding dishes, ropes, branches, platforms, etc). Check my posts in this thread because a couple of weeks ago I linked to a forum thread of people filling up Critter Nations and other cages. Really, though, it's a bit of trial and error finding out what works with your cage/rats and what doesn't.
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May 19, 2012 01:55
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m0rrin posted:
They don't exist. Seriously. Just get some rats, they'll be smart and trainable regardless. Their health will be crap, or it won't be, and you have absolutely no way of knowing. There are no rat breeders in the world breeding exclusively for health or temperament, if they're breeding for it at all. (They aren't.)
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May 19, 2012 03:00
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I was cooking up some pasta for myself for dinner and decided to chuck an egg in there to boil at the same time. Cooled it down in an ice bath and put it in the rat cage. They rolled it around a little but didn't seem to understand that food was inside, so I cracked it in half and now Garrus is pigging out on the yolk
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May 19, 2012 03:18
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It must be egg night. I too did a hardboiled egg and all three of them converged on it and rolled it around, tried biting it, were not sure what it was. Cracked it a bit, immediately Winston grabbed it and tried dragging it to his eating corner to pig out. They loved it.
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May 19, 2012 04:07
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Is the small animal Nature's Miracle 'cage cleaner' different from the regular dog version. I use Nature's Miracle to clean my rats' cage and I was wondering if the small animal version would be better. :/
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May 19, 2012 08:25
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Thanks for the reality check, super. I'm just wondering, are zip ties strong enough to hold coroplast in the cages so that the ratties can walk on it? Also, is it safe for me to use two washers, a nut and a bolt to affix others things like plastic containers and "rat apartments"? I also can't find custom sized ladders, any tips on what else they are ok with climbing from level to level? Is coroplast OK or will they slip?
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May 19, 2012 18:24
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m0rrin posted:I also can't find custom sized ladders, any tips on what else they are ok with climbing from level to level? Is coroplast OK or will they slip? This is how I make my rope ladders. I use applewood sticks or other flavored chew sticks and, rope, I think it's clothesline that I use for the rope. http://www.ehow.com/video_4807652_make-knots-rope-ladder.html These though are more for fun than actually getting around.
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May 19, 2012 20:07
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NaDy posted:Marley looking cute http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pDaYpqxxB0
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May 20, 2012 14:23
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| # ? Jun 6, 2024 11:24 |
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 Poorly taken, but a happy Bailey on my neck Not shown: Hailey not standing still for a photo as she tries to steal my glasses
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May 22, 2012 12:04
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