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Pew! Pew! posted:I was going to go with a solid theme in naming (all after video game characters)  I am an unrepentant video game geek. eta: Chell likes to sleep right at the edge of my dressing gown sleeve. I, of course, take photos of her when she does     Bonus Alice and Valentine exploring:  When I have them all out, it seems like they are all more confident (tonight we only had three poops and a couple of pees between all of the ratlets!), especially Val, but they only explore for a while and then retreat to my dressing gown and sleep. I had them out for about two and a half hours (whilst I sewed a hammock...) and they only played/explored for the first twenty or so minutes, then slept. Is that normal? 
Fraction fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Sep 14, 2012 |
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Sep 14, 2012 22:09
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Yep, that's pretty normal, heck, my old boys sniff a couple of times and find an inconvenient place on me to fall asleep right away.
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Sep 14, 2012 23:34
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Cool, I was just a little bemused because young rats, and especially girls, are supposed to never stop - but mine move for a while then fall into a rat pile. When they're all in my sleeve I end up looking like I have a crazy big bingo wing! Chell took a mealworm from me after I put them back tonight omg. This is the first time one of them has taken a treat! E: both Chell and Alice took mealworms and a couple sunflower seeds from me tonight!!! And they both came up onto my lap unprompted from the cage. Chell even got spooked and rather than running off, dived straight back to me I got to witness the most amazing thing, too: three girl rats, humping in a row. I did not know that it was possible to have a train of humping rats but apparently it is! Fraction fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Sep 16, 2012 |
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Sep 15, 2012 21:35
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Fraction posted:If you're going to make a claim like that we need photographic evidence! She'll sleep on the couch with me for ages     And two weird pics the BF took.  
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Sep 16, 2012 22:37
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Angie is adorable! How many rats do you have? I've decided to try ~litter training~ since I have a ton of fabric and it'd be a lot easier with my Aurora 450 cage (it lets out quite a lot of mess, which is the only downside to that cage imo). So clean cage/new setup pics ahoy!     Andddd general ratpix because I can't post here without spamming photos errywhere:       I finally got some nice photos of my little Chell Has anyone else litter trained their rats? I've heard it's pretty easy to do but not all rats take to it. I hope mine do!
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Sep 17, 2012 17:35
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Fraction posted:Angie is adorable! How many rats do you have? Four. Liza is the hooded agouti, Gypsy is the rusted mink, and Folly is the black berkshire. I've litterboxed trained mine and it's really pretty easy. If they have trouble and go in the other corners, try putting food bowls there.
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Sep 17, 2012 17:46
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I put a litter box in just for them to play around in and filled it with litter and tossed a toy in there. They took out the toy and are actually using it as a litter box with zero prompting. I doubt that'll happen with every rat, but it's worth a shot! Ratball. 
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Sep 17, 2012 17:47
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Can old rats be litter trained? I would like to do this but they're already long since mature.
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Sep 18, 2012 03:45
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Olive Bar posted:Can old rats be litter trained? I would like to do this but they're already long since mature. Sure can. I had no trouble with my older girl Patti. edit: totally getting this to show off my ratlady pride 
Invalid Octopus fucked around with this message at 04:31 on Sep 18, 2012 |
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Sep 18, 2012 04:00
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Olive Bar posted:Can old rats be litter trained? I would like to do this but they're already long since mature. I moved elderly rats (2.5 years old) into a single Storey cage and changed to a fleece/litter box system. I didn't even have to encourage them. They really took to the litter box.
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Sep 18, 2012 09:37
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Last night was not a great succes litter wise. They managed to pull up the fleece and poop under there as well as on top of it. I've moved their wheel so that might help, cleaned and hoovered the fabric and put fresh poops in the tray. How long does it usually take before they start getting the hang of it - like a week or two or longer? Also, treat talk. What do you guys use for treats? Mine get daily veg anyway, but they aren't too keen on it so really the only treats they get by hand are dried mealworms and some pumpkin and sunflower seeds. Chell did have a nibble on a chicken bone last night when I was holding it though Are those treat drops generally liked? I need to find something that Valentine will take off of me, she's still all nervous.
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Sep 18, 2012 10:48
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Fraction posted:Last night was not a great succes litter wise. They managed to pull up the fleece and poop under there as well as on top of it. I've moved their wheel so that might help, cleaned and hoovered the fabric and put fresh poops in the tray. How long does it usually take before they start getting the hang of it - like a week or two or longer? I give mine puffs as a treat 
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Sep 18, 2012 17:45
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Hey guys, I just got a book called "The Proper Care of FANCY RATS" circa 1994, anyone interested in hearing some excerpts from it? It's pretty hilarious. With such quotes as quote:Some varieties have different temperaments, or, to be more specific, different bloodlines of different varieties vary in temperament. All fancy rats are tame, as I have previously stated, but some are more placid or excitable than others. I’m not going to stick my neck out here and say which varieties are best in this respect, as this would only be my personal opinion and could cause offense to fanciers of a particular variety. And quote:As stated, kittens should be handled from birth, doe permitting, and this applies particularly at this stage of the litter's development. By handling the kittens from a young age, you will teach them not only that humans are not a threat and ensue tameness on their parts, you will also be teaching them that, in the nicest possible way, they, as pets, are submissive to their human owners. 
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Sep 18, 2012 21:10
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Pew! Pew! posted:Hey guys, I just got a book called "The Proper Care of FANCY RATS" circa 1994, anyone interested in hearing some excerpts from it? It's pretty hilarious. Any mention of alpha rolling your more troublesome rats?
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Sep 18, 2012 21:31
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daggerdragon posted:Any mention of alpha rolling your more troublesome rats? I once read somewhere that you should be Dominant Rat, and that you should pee on/wipe your pee on a troublemaking rat to prove this. 
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Sep 18, 2012 21:48
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I remember seeing that somewhere too. I don't even. Also the cages used in this book are made of cedar wood, chicken wire, and pine shavings as bedding.  And a bunch of photos of big rats in 10 gallon fish tanks. Augh.
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Sep 18, 2012 21:53
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Delta-Wye posted:I give mine puffs as a treat
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Sep 18, 2012 21:58
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Pew! Pew! posted:I remember seeing that somewhere too. I don't even. I found somewhere that quotes it!  quote:Take a tip from your big dude rat...Show the little thug who is *really* in charge. [snip]. Put some of your urine in a cup and set it aside. Grab the little imp and flip him on his back, agressively scratch his belly and brush your urine on his nose and belly and sex organs... If he protests, yell:"NO!" and continue to hold him on his back. Release him. If he gets up fast, throw him on his back and hold him till he squeaks. When he gets up slowly, let him. Do this several times a day when you feel like it and especially if he gets nippy. [Ratlist, April 2003] I can't even imagine trying this with my rats. I think they'd have mental breakdowns. but do it as often as you want guysss
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Sep 18, 2012 21:58
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....Brushing your piss on a rat's "sex organs". You heard it here folks.
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Sep 18, 2012 22:36
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quote:pee on your rats That's disgusting.
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Sep 18, 2012 22:36
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I never had much luck litter training my girls, but I was lazy about it so that's probably half to blame. The point where I gave up was when I came in one day to find half of their plastic litter tray had vanished - completely demolished, I to this day have no idea whether they ate it, or chewed it into dust, or what. Good luck with your endeavours, Fraction  Ratties digging things up and pooping under them is so frustrating. I remember when I used to line the tray with newspaper they would always rip it up and poop under it, and cleaning up afterwards was always super disgusting. I think you mentioned (and from looking at your pics) that you were using aubiose or something similar as bedding? That might explain why they were making such a mess, I used aubiose for about a year and it's so light and bitty that it gets absolutely EVERYWHERE. Even the lightest little jump from them made it spray all over the place and out the cage. I'm now using BedXcel and although the occasional bit makes it out the cage, it's nowhere near as bad because it's big cardboard squares so easy to pick up and clean up. I was also really surprised by how little it smells, too. But I think if you can litter train your girls then liners/litterbox seems like a great option.I wanted to ask you guys a question about rats fighting. My two girls, Blue and Mouse, are about 6-7months old now and they fight A LOT. I find it really hard to tell if it's just play or something more serious. My previous two rats used to wrassle a bit, but they didn't make a lot of noise, and my two new girls are always squeaking/crying when they fight which makes it a bit distressing. Sometimes there's even a really guttural kind of squawk, which is horrible. They absolutely never have any marks on them afterwards though, and they do sleep together and otherwise seem to get on. Are they just noisy/exuberant? What should I look for to ascertain what kind of behaviour (playful, or aggressive) it is? I wondered if getting a third rat might ease the tension, because I think half the problem is that Mouse wants to play a lot more than her sister, but that seems a bit dramatic and oh god do I hate introductions. Super stress. Any insight on rats playing/fighting would be much appreciated.
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Sep 19, 2012 16:13
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Invalid Octopus posted:Sure can. I had no trouble with my older girl Patti. I hope you're being sarcastic here. That doesn't even look like a rat, it looks like someone tried to make a pattern for a cat and hosed up in a serious manner
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Sep 19, 2012 18:43
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redmercer posted:I hope you're being sarcastic here. That doesn't even look like a rat, it looks like someone tried to make a pattern for a cat and hosed up in a serious manner It's cool man, no need to get mad about sweaters itt pet a ratte or somethin 
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Sep 20, 2012 03:20
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PEW! PEW! posted:book quote is dumb: Okay this one chunk is actually JUST A LITTLE BIT TRUE, but the author is drawing the wrong conclusions from the bit of truth in there. Different ratteries linebreed heavily enough that many established ones can have their own bloodlines. Within those bloodlines, temperament will often become pretty uniform with enough selective breeding, obviously. At the same time, ratteries often focus on only a couple of colors/coat types/markings/etc. So, for example, you end up with "most rats of X bloodline have Y temperament. Rats of X bloodline are Z color. Therefore, all rats of Z color have Y temperament." When in reality, coat color has nothing to do with any given tempermant- it just so happened to be that z color and y temperament were both traits that were simultaneously, but independently, selectively bred for in that bloodline. To extend this further, local breeders often dumped their extra rats, retired rats, and culls at local pet stores back then- chain pet stores were less common, and large suppliers for those stores were less large and widescale, so in many places, your local mom and pops were supplies almost exclusively by local breeder's culls and extras. So depending on where you live, if you happen to have one local breeder churning out blue rats who are all super bitey, and fawn rats of a different line who were all super friendly, it would be fair to say that, locally, "fawn rats tend to be nicer than blue rats" because that is the case for rats in that area because of what that one local breeder/supplier is churning out. Now it is at the point where large suppliers who supply chain stores have their own stock that is consistently of certain colors and certain temperaments, and the same can be said for what they produce. So really, you CAN say rats of different varieties have different temperaments, but ONLY if those rats are selectively bred and/or closely inbred in a closed colony (as is the case for many large suppliers) and are therefore of a certain strain or bloodline. Rats that are the result of constant outcrossing are the only one who will lack that consistency.
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Sep 20, 2012 04:56
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On inbreeding in this book: quote:Don't be misled, however, that the notion of close inbreeding i.e., brother x sister, father x daughter, can necessarily lead to such defects in offspring. Careful inbreeding can actually improve your strain! I get what this is trying to say too, but it's a book made for people that have never studied genetics OR rats. So of course it's pretty much waving off what they said directly before that: quote:There have been notable cases of rats producing small, weedy offspring, which, although they have a lovely color or whatever, they have no physical color whatsoever. In some cases, inherited physical defects have been observed, such as tailessness, or even worse, some does being born without vaginas.  ). I understand what it's getting at but it's pretty dangerous to just hand a first-time rat owner this book and say "have at it" without going more in-depth when you say stuff like "but it's okay to inbreed sometimes".Maybe they expect people to figure it out on their own when they start getting vagina-less rats or something
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Sep 20, 2012 12:40
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 NO.
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Sep 20, 2012 18:06
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Everyone cross your fingers for Hurley, he has slowly been going downhill over the last two months, but when I woke up this morning it was immediate vet time. I dropped him off and I'm just waiting to hear back.
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Sep 21, 2012 19:31
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Good luck with Hurley! Fingers crossed for him. Valentine took a treat from me today (chicken dipped in a little bit of ice cream) and even licked some ice cream off my fingertip. First time she's dared take anything from That Scary Person! Alice and Chell loving well loved the ice cream (strawberries & cream flavour) and as a one time treat I hope it isn't too bad for them. My dogs were very sulky that the rats got the last couple of teaspoons' worth of ice cream instead of them Tldr ice cream is rat crack
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Sep 21, 2012 21:18
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Best wishes Olive Bar. Hope the little dude pulls through.     
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Sep 21, 2012 22:00
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Pretty sure my "hairless" is actually a rex. Or would that be doublerex? At this point it's like quadruple rex or something ANYWAY. Is there any way to know this for sure which doesn't involve breeding him? He has small patches of fuzz, extremely curled whiskers, and some color markings (like a black cap on his face).
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Sep 21, 2012 22:26
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I think the black-cap hairless rats are part of agouti based lines. When I got Bandit and his brother, they were from that particular stock. Bandit was darker when he was younger, but got lighter as he got older.   From what I know there are a couple of hairless varieties. There's nude or true hairless rats, double-rexes "patchwork" hairless rats, and then there's those who have fuzz on their legs, their face, and sporadically throughout their body. I don't know what the term is for them.
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Sep 21, 2012 23:00
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Yeah, he looks a ton like your Bandit so I wouldn't be surprised if it were a similar lineage. He's got a few peach fuzz spots so I'm not sure. Since I didn't get him from a breeder I honestly can't tell! Does that mean (if he's from a similar strain) that genetically he'd be considered agouti color-wise? On another note, I'm seriously debating something. He's small right now - about a third the size of my female rats. And he doesn't have another rat in the cage he's in. I'm seriously worried about keeping him by himself, but I can't tell if he's too young and small to be fixed, much less put in my females' cage. Should I focus on fixing or try to find him a similarly-sized friend? I'm just worried about possibly getting a sick pet store rat because I've had bad experiences with all of them that sell male rats. Mycoplasma galore. I've found two breeders but their litters won't be ready for another month or so.
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Sep 21, 2012 23:11
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Happy rat pictures always make me feel better. Well, Hurley is home, but he has cancer and a horrible case of pneumonia. The vet thinks they are related. He put him on some really strong antibiotics, but he said if Hurley doesn't show signs of improvement by Monday then we have hard decisions to make. I'm crushed, but I have to have hope. Hurley is my favorite (just don't let my other cuties hear that). Give your rats kisses for me. Edit: Also, Hurley has lice, the vet said from his compromised immune system, this is super gross because no matter how hard I look I can't find any. The vet said to use kitten lice shampoo on him to get rid of them, but do you guys think I should wait until Sunday to see if he gets some relief from his respiratory symptoms first, or is he secretly in an itchy hell and it needs to be done now? Olive Bar fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Sep 22, 2012 |
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Sep 21, 2012 23:57
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Those rats are double rexes. True hairlessness is linked to a couple of genes that are not commonly found in pet lines because it is linked to lactation issues. If you have a "hairless" rat that is not from certain lab strains, you can generally assume it is a double rex. quote:I think the black-cap hairless rats are part of agouti based lines. When I got Bandit and his brother, they were from that particular stock. Bandit was darker when he was younger, but got lighter as he got older. Capping (a marking gene) black (a color gene) and hairlessness (a coat type gene) are all completely unrelated genetically. Double rex and hairless rats can be of any color or marking variety. All rat colors are either black (aa) based, or agouti (AA) based. Black is the recessive form. If you breed two black rats the babies will all be "aa," and therefore black, but if you breed two agouti rats, you may get some black babies depending on the second modifier (whether both rats are "AA" (agouti) or "Aa" (agouti carrying black.) All other rat colors are dilutions of those two "base" colors. Marking and coat type genes operate entirely separately from this. a "black cap hairless rat" is not a "type" of rat or even a specific line, it is simply a double rex who happens to be black and capped. It is not its own "stock" or "Strain" unless it is from a breeder breeding nothing but consistent black capped double rex rats that breed true and nothing else. Supercondescending fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Sep 22, 2012 |
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Sep 22, 2012 03:32
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Thanks Super, I figured as much since I had no idea of his lineage and my friend just kind of "found" him when I asked about it but won't go into more detail than that. Whatever his skin's still fun to mess with. Naked rat naked rat naked rat
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Sep 22, 2012 03:36
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Here's one of the two girls coming home on Monday, love this chubby wubby roan. I'm thinking of the name "minkee" of course said in the most shrill voice imaginable.
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Sep 23, 2012 04:25
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Oh. My. God. I think we've found the most freaking adorable rat in the world! I think Hurley might be turning around, I'm slightly less terrified he'll die, so that's an improvement. He's being a little jerk about taking his meds though, but that's ok as long as I get them in.
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Sep 23, 2012 17:47
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m0rrin posted:Here's one of the two girls coming home on Monday, love this chubby wubby roan. I'm thinking of the name "minkee" of course said in the most shrill voice imaginable. Jesus Christ wanna pet dat rat.
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Sep 23, 2012 18:01
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m0rrin posted:Here's one of the two girls coming home on Monday, love this chubby wubby roan. I'm thinking of the name "minkee" of course said in the most shrill voice imaginable. GIVE! I'm having zero luck so far litter training the rats. The only time I've seen them even in it was this evening, when I cleaned their cage and Alice decided to dig in it. I don't know if I should try a different kind of box (currently they have one of those triangular ferret litter boxes) or just carry on for now and see if they take to it. I was secretly hoping they were gonna be rats that basically toilet train themselves but that doesn't seem to be happening. 
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Sep 23, 2012 22:53
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Fraction posted:GIVE! What are you doing to litter train them? The only rat I've had litter train herself was Angela, and that's because I moved her in as a baby with two litter trained adults.
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Sep 23, 2012 23:21
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