Bitey Rats

The adorable Charmin, from Rat Balls, showing off his chompers

I'm grateful that I've never really had to deal with a bitey rat (yet). Aside from the occasional nip from an over-excited treat retrieval, I don't think Potato and Goma have ever really bitten anyone; they've always been pretty good about pulling back when necessary.

As you can see from these links, not everyone has been as lucky as me.

If you have had issues with your rats biting, there could be a number of reasons for it. The big one, of course, is due to fear or surprise. If you try to pick up a young rat who isn't used to being picked up - or to you - there's a good chance he'll nip you since he doesn't know what's going on. The same goes for surprising a rat who doesn't realize you're there. I've surprised my boys more than once, so I'm lucky that they're pretty chill most of the time. If one of your rats tends toward biting, there are some good suggestions for why, and suggestions for overcoming these issues, here and here. There are also some useful responses in the above links, too.

Some Rats Demand Change

Shephard the rat in action

I wanted to share this video with you a while ago, but managed to lose the link. Thankfully, today I was able to hunt it down once more. My rats have never been big on stashing things and, cute as it is, I'm somewhat grateful, since I imagine more than a few important items could disappear in the paws of a more enterprising rat. According to the video's thread on Rattit, this little girl managed to collect 54 cents before getting bored. What do your rats like to stash?

A Brief Look at Rats In Popular Culture

Image from Parlour Magazine

Yes, that's a picture of Remy from the 2007 Disney/Pixar film, Ratatouille. Why? Because it's one of the few major motion pictures to portray rats in a positive light. I mean, yes, Remy's ratty kin are not the cleanest of animals, but the fact that there's a lovable rat protagonist is still a step in the right direction.

Mice have been getting positive attention ever since Mickey took to the screen in the late 1920s, but rats have always seemed to be trapped in a negative light. I've made up a short list of the many times rats have had a villainous or negative role.

The Pied Piper of Hamelin features a plague of rats that overtakes a town, destroying food and driving people out of their homes. It's the people's desperation to rid themselves of the rats that attracts the piper.

The main antagonist in the Disney film The Great Mouse Detective is a massive rat, Professor Rattigan, who seeks to seize control of the British monarchy. While he's later revealed to be a mouse, it's his status as a rat throughout the film that establishes him as a villain.

In the film The Tale of Despereaux, rats play the greedy villains who kidnap the small kingdom's princess.

The beloved children's story Charlotte's Web features Templeton, a rat who is portrayed as greedy, gluttonous, and lazy. While he does help Wilbur quite a bit, it would be nice if he didn't have to be bribed into doing all of his good deeds.

The horror films Willard and Ben (Willard's sequel) feature hyper-intelligent rats with a penchant for attacking and occasionally killing people.

I'll leave you with that, but I think you get my point. Apart from Remy, the only rats I can immediately think of that are portrayed positively in pop culture are those in The Secret of NIMH (to a degree; they're still kind of scary) and Rat-In-A-Hat from the Australian children's show Bananas In Pyjamas.

I'll talk more about the reasoning behind these portrayals in a later post, so for now, tell me your favourite (or least favourite) movie, show, game, or book that features rats. I'm sure there are tonnes more than the ones I've mentioned.

Continuing with the Cross-Creature Interaction

I was going to try to come up with something more content-heavy to post this morning, but then I saw this video of a dog interacting with his three rat compadres and, well, what can I say? I'm a sucker for cute animal videos. 

Kitten-On-Rat Action

This video is adorable beyond words. It's clear from their behaviour that both animals are having fun. The kitten seems a bit concerned about its new playmate, but that rat clearly has no qualms with checking out her new buddy.

I only wish my cats and rats could interact as well as these two. As I've mentioned before, Potato and Goma would probably love some cat-related playtime, but one cat is terrified of them and the other would probably ignore them until he got hungry.

Hat Your Rat!

Viking hat from A Hat for my Rat

I recently stumbled upon this awesome online store, A Hat for my Rat. If you've ever wanted to outfit your rats in tiny accessories, whether for a photo shoot, celebration, or just for fun, this is the place for you! They have a huge selection of hats and costumes available and have clearly had fun with naming every one. Considering that these are all hand-made items, the pricing and shipping are also quite reasonable. And, on top of everything else, they do custom orders, so you can get the perfect outfit to match your (or your rat's) vision.

I'll definitely be ordering a few things for my boys to wear on Halloween. Be sure to let me know what your favourite ratty outfits are.

The Calmest Baby In the World

I can't believe how nonchalant this little guy is. I'm sure we've all wished for a rat as calm as him. I know I sure have. On the other hand, though, I imagine he'll turn into one snoozey, cuddly adult. Actually, that sounds pretty good after all.

The Empathetic Rat

Potato and Goma being "trapped"

This article shows another amazing way that rats are more than they may seem. Two rats were housed together for an extended period of time and were later moved into a new area in which one of them was restrained. It seems that the distress of the trapped rats affected their free cohorts to the point that they quickly began trying to free their cage mates. When placed in the same situation once more, an overwhelming number of free rats immediately moved to free the trapped rats, doing so even before opening a similar container full of food. Experiments like this have allowed rats to join a growing category of animals that are considered capable of empathy.

Keeping a Clean House and Home

Cage base and accessories soaking in hot soapy water

As a general rule, it's a good idea to spot-clean your rats' cage daily and then do a thorough clean each week. For me, this entails a full soak and scrub of the cage base and any loose items, such as shelving or dishes, that can get wet. Then, once a month or so, I also thoroughly wipe down the cage bars to remove anything that may have gotten on them while Goma and Potato were running around.

There are a lot of different ways you can clean your cage and the method you choose to use should be based on whatever's most convenient for your living situation. For example, in the summer, I'll usually disassemble the cage outside and set the rats up an outdoor play area while I literally hose everything down. I put some mild dish soap into the cage base to wash anything that needs a deeper clean. In the winter and on cooler days, however, I tend to load everything into the bath tub for an easy wash and rinse. The latter is clearly the better choice for someone living in an apartment or without easy access to a yard.

The size of your cage is also a big factor. When Potato and Goma were still little, they had a much smaller cage than they do now, and it was easy enough for me to carry it outside or to the bathroom. Their second cage was taller, but still skinny enough for me to manoeuvre fairly easily. Now, though, their cage is much too large for me to easily move by myself - I can manage it, but I need some help if I don't want to get stuck in doorways or bang into walls. I imagine a large ferret cage or something similar would require a lot more work to move or take apart.

One great thing about taking everything out to get cleaned is that, on top of the cage looking a lot nicer for a while and your rats getting out for a bit, you can also take the opportunity to reorganize the overall layout. Changing your rats' environment is a great way to stimulate them for a while as they figure out where everything's been moved to. Although, whenever I clean my rats' cage, they always act like they've never seen it before, reorganized or not.

For more information and suggestions about cage cleaning, check out this page from Rat Guide.

Fishing for Peas

If you've never let your rats fish for peas, I highly recommend it. The basic set-up can be found here. As you can see from watching Goma in the above video, fishing peas out of a bowl of water is quite the engaging activity for rats. Not to mention that it's a great way to help them associate getting wet with positive outcomes. I haven't graduated my boys to deeper water yet since, as I've mentioned before, they haven't had the best experiences with water in the past. Anyway, if you've been trying to think of a new game for your rats, definitely give this one a try (who doesn't want to play a game where the prize is food every time?).

As a side-note, my apologies for the upside-down video. I corrected it, but it flipped back after uploading, so I'm not quite sure how to fix it at this point.

Rat Addiction Comic

Title page of the Rat Park comic

If you recall my post about rats and addiction, you may like this excellent comic. It's based on the same study, but goes into much more detail than the original article I linked, as well as further expanding on the experiment's results. Not to mention that the art is great.

Rats and Chinese Food Safety

Photo from stock.xchng

If you don’t like to think about rats in any form of distress, I suggest skipping this one.

I’m sure many of you have already heard about the Chinese rat meat scandal, but, if you haven’t, here’s a quick rundown. Similar to the way some cultures see dogs as just another meal, it recently came to light that many people in China also consume rats. It’s uncomfortable to think of your favourite furry friends on someone’s dinner plate. Unfortunately, most of the people eating rat meat were just as uncomfortable with the discovery, given that they thought it was lamb. Long story short, at the beginning of last month, a huge crime ring was uncovered in which people were catching rats and refashioning them to resemble lamb meat. Not only were consumers being duped for who knows how long, but they also have no way to know where or what conditions the unfortunate rats came from. Obviously, this mess has caused a huge uproar over food and other regulations in China. You can read more about this event and some of the country’s past food safe issues in this article. It’s things like this that make me glad I live in a country with relatively strict food-related regulations.

Buying the Right Size of Cage for Your Rats

One of Potato's and Goma's first outdoor experiences was aided with the top of their first cage

If you're a new rat owner, you may not be entirely sure what size of cage your rats need to be comfortable. For instance, when I first got Goma and Potato, they had a pretty small cage, but it afforded them plenty of room since they were still young and small (you can see the top-view size pictured above). After that, they were upgraded to a cage with more height (but slightly less depth) so they had more space to climb. Unfortunately, the lack of floor space made their new cage feel cramped, especially once they started to look more like adults. Currently, they have a good-sized cage, about three times the size of their original home, with enough to space to accommodate a new ratty room mate, just in case.

If you're not sure about what size of cage you should be buying for your rats, you can use the cage size calculator found here to get an idea of what to look for.