The Beans

Rolls upon rolls upon rolls 😍

That faaaaaace!!!!

Would you like a cup of ratto? ☕🐀

I’ve noticed that many of the ratblr related tags are filled with people mistreating and not properly caring for their rats. First of all, I’m not going to sugar coat anything; It’s a sign of a bad pet owner to buy a pet without having done your proper research into what it requires to care for that animal.

Getting pet care information from a pet shop is dangerous and more often then not, the information they give out is just plain wrong, as well as the products they sell that are marketed for “rats” often don’t meet the basic requirements for rats. The people that work at these shops want to make money, and most often they have no prior animal specific training or education. So it is up to you to properly research the care required for rats. 

Since I see a lot of people apparently incapable of doing their own research, I’ll be walking through the basic requirements for pet rats. Note that these are only the BASIC requirements, and you should be providing above this. 

THE RATS 

First of all, you should NEVER ever have only one rat. There is no excuse to housing only one rat (save for temporary medical reasons or behavioral issues). If you only want one pet rat, then I’m sorry rats are not the pet for you! Rats are highly social animals, they require large social groups. Most would suggest having at least TWO pet rats at a time, but to be quite honest I feel that you should have at least THREE rats at one time. 

Your rats should also be kept in either female or male groups to avoid unwanted pregnancy and fights. Unless the rats are desexed, in that case mixed groups of rats do really well together. There’s both pros and cons to having either female or male rats, that you should take into consideration. 

Male rats tend to grow MUCH larger, so keep that in mind. The rat on the left is female and the rat on the right is a male. 

Male rats also tend to be much more lazy and cuddly, and will spend some of their time napping and eating. They secrete buck grease (orange-y in appearance, as shown below) that can often cause their backs to be oily due to their levels of testosterone. 

Female rats are much more “active.” They tend to want to run around, play and explore a whole lot more then male rats do. They’re also a lot smaller then the males (and minus the huge balls that male rats have. If you don’t like the idea of huge naked rat balls dragging over you, you may want female rats instead). They also go into heat often, so will get a little rowdy; mostly this just includes lots of humping between the cage mates. (if your female rats are humping each other don’t worry. It’s normal and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. And you shouldn’t aim to stop normal, healthy, behaviours if it’s not hurting the pet).  

Also keep in mind that your pet rats need to be handled daily, and let out of their cage for a run around / social time with you. So you’ll need an area that is safe for your rats to free roam (under supervision). This means, making sure there isn’t anything they can chew through (wires, clothes, shoes), escape from, or get into, that you don’t want them to. 

CAGE 

Okay this is the biggest issue I see people have with their pets. So this is going to be a long one, so buckle down. 

SIZE

Firstly, the size of the cage. Those cages that pet shops market as “rat” cages are not at all suitable for rats. 

These cages are not at all big enough for rats. The rule of thumb is that each rat requires 2 cubic feet per rat. This rat cage calculator  is a great tool, where you can either put the dimensions of a cage or the number of rats you have, and it’ll calculate their how many rats you can fit into that cage, or the size cage required. 

Rats need a lot of space! A rat cage like this one (below) can only fit two rats.  

This cage could probably only fit about 4-5 rats 

While a large cage like this one (below) could fit up to 6-7 rats!

TYPE - wire, plastic, glass?

Rats should be kept in wire cages. Glass and plastic tanks / cages (shown below) are all bad enclosures (for a whole number of reasons but we’ll focus on the type for now). 

Glass and plastic tanks don’t have enough ventilation and can result in a build up of ammonia (from urine), smell and temperature. Not only that but they don’t offer the rats any way to climb (as well as all of these being too low in the first place). 

Rats like to climb, and wire cages offer them the ability to do this, as well as having better air flow and less risk of them chewing through the cage and escaping. 

SUBSTRATE

This is another big one, that I see people not doing correctly. Rats are very prone to respiratory infections and this tends to mostly be caused by the type of substrate used in their cage. The above photos all use wood shavings / straw as a substrate. Wood shavings are terrible for rats, they are filled with dust, mites, parasites, they don’t really help soak up urine and they tend to make the smell worse. 

Some alternatives include covering the floor with fabric, that can be washed. This in my opinion isn’t the best, as they tend to get really dirty within the first few hours after cleaning the cage. They’re also not fun to wash. 

Another opinion is paper kitty litter (like the one below). It’s good for soaking up urine and helps a lot with smell in general. 

I personally use newspapers to line the cages. My rats also like to rip it up and use it as bedding for their nests and it’s cheap and easily available.  

COVERING PLATFORMS

Another huge thing I see rat owners do is have uncovered wired platforms. You need to cover all the platforms that are not solid (aka wired). These can be covered in fabric (again I tend not to use fabric anymore personally, as they get dirty quickly and my rats loved to chew the hell out of it), paper, or some sort of plastic covering (though you need to make sure your rats aren’t chewing the plastic, in case they swallow any). 

If wired platforms aren’t covered, your rats will have a good chance of developing bumblefoot; a painful condition caused by the inflammation and/or infection of the surface and connective tissue of the feet (as shown below). 

TOYS, BEDS AND HAMMOCKS

Again, most of the photos shown in rat related tags have pretty bare cages. You cannot put a few platforms, one hammock, water bottles and a food dish in a cage and call it a day. That’s lazy and bad pet care. 

Rats require lots and lots of toys, beds, hammocks, places to hide / sleep / nest and chew / destroy.  (as well as litter boxes if you’d like to litter train your rats, which I suggest you do. It’ll make cleaning easier). 

All the above cages are really good examples of cage set up’s that rats require. And no these cages aren’t “over the top”, these cages are the basic requirements for rats. if you can’t provide these sorts of set ups, then pet rats aren’t for you. 

HYGIENE 

Rats can be destructive. They’ll like to tear things up and chew through everything, flick food everywhere and pee on literally every part of their cage, including their cage mates. So you need to be cleaning their cage out at least once a week but ideally twice a week, depending on how messy the cage gets.  

The rats themselves don’t really require much bathing. Rats themselves are actually pretty clean, and spend a lot of time grooming themselves and each other. However they will pee on each other and they can get dirty (especially males with lots of buck grease). You shouldn’t really be washing them any more then monthly. When washing rats, use only a tiny bit of something like baby shampoo, and make sure that you don’t get their ears wet, as it can lead to ear infections.    

FOOD

Feeding rats can be quite expensive. They require high quality specific rodent feed / lab blocks (low quality feed will have fillers like corn, which aren’t that great for your rats, and are often pretty dusty which can cause respiratory infections). On top of the feed, they require (often daily) fresh veggies, fruit, protein (eggs are a good source. And it’s fun watching your rats eat their way through a hard boiled egg) and carbs (such as pasta).  

Male rats cannot be fed any sort of  citrus fruit; it’s bad for their health in the long term, often leading to cancer or UTI’s. 

ILLNESS AND DISEASE 

Rats and really prone to disease and illness. Most commonly respiratory infections, cancer, tumours, UTI’s, bumblefoot. They will require trips to the vet, so if you cannot afford to take your pet to the vet; and this often means a specialised small animal vet (as not every vet will be able / have experience with rats) then you should not have or be considering getting a, pet.  

EXPENSES AND MONEY 

Lastly I want to get mention expenses and money. Most people will use the excuse of not taking their rat to the vet because of lack of money, their parents won’t let them, ect. 

I’m going to be brutally honest. You shouldn’t have a pet then. This obviously doesn’t include people going through sudden financial crisis or are hit with a sudden very expensive vet bill, ect. 

bucks won’t get so much buck grease if you feed them a low protein diet (no eggs/meat or small portions given occasionally, regular feed with 14-16% protein). seed mixes are not nutritionally complete and your rats will get fat and develop shitty coats on commercial/seed-heavy food mixes

corn in dry mixes is bad for all small animals bc it often harbors fungus. they don’t use food grade corn for that shit. rats love fresh corn in the husk tho, and leafy greens like kale and spinach, romaine, sometimes squash, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, peas, bell peppers, etc. fruits: berries, melon, grapes, banana, peach, apple, etc but do not serve them banana peel, nor any kind of pit or apple seeds as these are poisonous. they don’t like spicy stuff or onion or garlic. raw potato is poisonous for them and raw tofu isn’t safe. they do love cooked tofu and cooked eggs but mind the protein. they also like noodles and bread but those are treats. I’ve used uncooked noodles and small bits of bread as a training reward but different rats like different treats. rats are physically incapable of burping so don’t give them anything carbonated, and they can’t digest large amounts of fat (like a chunk of fat cut from a steak) as they do not have gallbladders. giving caffeine to a rat is just really poor life choices, please do not purchase a latte for your rats no matter how much you love them. like most mammals including like 60% of humanity rats are lactose-intolerant after weaning; some milk from your cup or cereal bowl won’t kill them but they might get diarrhea if they have too much. giving vegetables more than a couple times per week will also give them super rank diarrhea

paper pellet bedding is dusty so watch out for that. pine and cedar shavings sold in major pet stores are also dusty and the aromatic oils in the wood will give your rats respiratory infections and contribute to cancers. cat litter is not suitable as they are often scented and the clay in them will damage their lungs. most rat owners I know use felt or fleece sheets (some put it over over puppy pads) clipped to the cages trays and fill bottom pans and litter pans with paper bedding or KILN-DRIED ASPEN SHAVINGS. they must be KILN-DRIED as this destroys harmful aromatic oils in the wood and makes it absorbent enough to be worth it. I get an enormous compressed bag of this shit from the feed store for $6 and keep it in a lidded garbage can. I get regular felt by the bolt for the upper decks. fleece is safe and comes in a lot of patterns but it is more expensive and less absorbent. do not use shop, dish, or bathroom towels or other material with loops all over the surface in rat cages as they catch on a rat’s claws (may cause them to rip claws out or injure themselves) and fray apart into shitty death nets which rats can get tangled/strangled/hung. that goes double for juvenile and elderly rats

rats get bumblefoot from bacteria caused by unsanitary conditions. wire shelves are commonly blamed for bumblefoot but that is because of rust and poor cleaning. if you have a cage with wire shelves like one of those 2 level rat manors they sell at chain pet stores, cover them with cardboard or fabric cut to fit and make sure you keep it clean and rust-free

if you don’t give your rats hammocks and cardboard boxes, you are just a dick. anyway they love to shred paper to make nests, I give em newspaper (make sure it’s printed with soy-based or other non-toxic ink) or crumpled packing paper. I get big ass rolls of it from the moving supplies area of a hardware store. listen……. every cardboard/paperboard box from cereal, tissues, crackers, big packs of Canned Beverage, packages, etc in my home goes to the rats. they love that shit

every rat loves space pods/sputniks/whatever they call em now, and big “igloo” toys. big 4-6 inch sewer pipe connectors from the hardware store are good and easy to clean

rats absolutely must have stuff to chew on, trimming overgrown teeth is not at all fun. fruit tree wood (like you use in a smoker) and bones and coconut shell and non-rawhide dog chews like hooves and pig ears and bully sticks are all great. parrot toys are good too

when your rats grow older, they will have less energy and some bucks develop hind leg degeneration which limits their mobility a lot. make sure to keep their food, water, and hammock within their reach and try to make sure they don’t fall too far. watch for mammary tumors in the girls, most are preventable by a spay but pick your vet carefully

for vet recs and health or behavioral advice, get in touch with your local rodent rescues or rat fancier club (these exist worldwide). sometimes breeders have good advice but be particular about your sources. do not consult people who breed rats as food for other animals. personally I wouldn’t take advice from a breeder who “hard culls” or houses rats in a “rack system” bc I think those practices indicate poor standards of care

don’t buy animals from pet stores, use a reputable rodent rescue or a REPUTABLE breeder who has quality animals that they clearly put time and care into. not some random prick from craigslist who has 200 rats in a dark closet in her nasty garage and will sell them for $5 each to absolutely anyone. I would not adopt from a breeder who adopts out rats that will be kept alone, a breeder who doesn’t require adopters sign a contract, or a breeder who doesn’t accept returned animals. these are people who burden rescue organizations and enable animal abuse and neglect. do not reward them with your money

This is Duckie, one of my lovely boy rats. He had to have a leg amputated when he was five months old because of a bone infection but he’s not really noticed. He loves cuddles and showing off his most glorious whiskers!