So, my snek, Salazar, is supposed to be fed this Tuesday.. NO pet store near us had any medium Frozen rats,, except ONE place,, ... ... supposedly...

Turns out they did have a medium rat,, but when my mom got home,, it MOVED! The box MOVED!!!

She FREAKED out! AND SO DID I!!!

Salazar doesn't eat LIVE rats!!!! He's only ever had FROZEN!!! Poor boy would get hurt not knowing what to do with a very ALIVE rat!!! Poor rat would be scared out of his mind!!! What pet store does this when someone SPECIFICALLY asks for a FROZEN rat?????

We didn't feel good taking it back to inevitably die in a terrifying way, so we kinda just let him go near our house... It's raining so cats and birds and other predators shouldn't be out and hunting rn, so at least he can have some freedom.... If he ends up in our house, I'm keeping him as a pet!

mlem

I've had rats for years at this point now and finally want to put down the best tips I've learned. This won't work for everyone, some are very conditional to me, but maybe some of these will help someone. Fleece hammocks: Boo. Microplastics and too warming. Canvas hammocks: Yes, please. Highly washable. Far more tough. I wish they were easier to find. Coiled rope baskets are also a godsend. I hang them by the handles in the cage, they love them way more than anything marketed to rats. Bottles are nice but some rats wanna splash and have a place to wash their little hands. Fresh in pod peas are by the pound at my supermarket. I usually spend 70 cents on the amount for several treat sessions. All my frozen peas end up getting freezer burnt by the time I get halfway through the bag. Antibiotics will be needed if you keep rats. Do not give antibiotics with dairy, many classes of antibiotics bond to calcium thereby making them far less effective. Speaking of, antibiotics seem to have the hardest taste to cover up. Ground meat baby food, Hershey simply five syrup (Just a little), peanut powder (No added sugar, oils), fruit compote/jam/jelly, small absorbent bread snacks/cereal, smushed pasta, cream of wheat, are all options to get meds into rats. You can call exotic vets and ask for an estimate on a basic rat exam. Do it, the prices vary WILDLY. We had a vet who charged us 35$ to see three rats at once and one who quoted us 200$ to look at one. You're gonna notice a trend if you call vets in higher class/rich areas. Fuck em'. Also ask your vet if you can keep a supply of meds on hand just in case. If they last at room temp you can buy some preemptively. Things like doxycycline you can get from human pharmacies.

Zip ties are god. All hail zip ties. Same with swivel clasps. Between them both you can cage mount anything your heart desires.

Leave bedding in a hot car or freezing conditions for a night. Warehouses get mites. Mites are a dick to deal with. Kill em' all.

Give them a variety of fresh things while they're young. Not always but sometimes I'd get an older gent rescue who had no idea what to do with berries or tomatoes and would refuse them. They learn better what is safe when young. At some point you will have an emergency. Make sure you know where an emergency vet is and that they keep night/weekend hours. Keep funds on hand for that day.

Rats hide pain well. When they age you may need to start pain management if you notice them moving differently even if they don't show their pain blatantly. Just start with low doses and see if they act like their old selves again. Research your breeders. Get recommendations from other rat people. Check and see if there are rat rescues in your area. Also the Humane Society sometimes takes in rodents.

Controversial take: You will encounter people in ratkeeping who say buying feeders is a sin. It's not. Feeder supply will exist whether or not every rat fancier boycotts them. We are far far fewer in number than snake/lizard people. Wherever you got your rats it's valid so long as you give them healthcare, good nutritious food, love, and mental stimulation. A lot of the 'foods to avoid, foods to include' lists are not researched. I've seen lists that ban chocolate. Rats freaking love chocolate they just need to take it easy on fats and sugars but cocoa powder can be a good mix in and can help ratty blood flow. I've seen people ban mango. if you read the study that led to this they gave rats an obscene amount of D-limonene to trigger cancer and small amounts had no side effects at all. Read the studies, look for sources.

I HAVE PET RATS NOW AGAGAGAAAA

the light one is named sticky and the darker one is named Ricky (short for rickathena since they are both girlypop)

The cage is very temporary and we are getting a new cage as I am making this post, but agagaa

They were supposed to be feeder rats but I got them anyways bc I want the rat to be safe n they were the only rats that I could get around

had this little rat frozen for a long time, finally put her in a nice little heart jar <3

hoagie+pudding

Imagine being put on the same diet as your gym rat friend but they forbid you from working. All those thousands of extra calories that they burn lifting weights or doing cardio you turn into soft fat sitting around at home. They get home all excited about their new deadlift pb and force you up onto the scale to see your new weight pb, struggling to lift up off the scales they carry you back to the couch where you spend most of your days and declare a cheat day to celebrate.

Photo dump of the most perfect boy to ever grace this earth. So grateful he came into my life. My heart rat forever and always.

Weighed Junie and Toast so that I can have a rough idea of what sizes of prey I should get since I'm making a trip to Ace tomorrow (yes, my Ace Hardware has live and frozen reptile feeders, its wack), and found out that while Juniper is a healthy 768g 1 and a half year old female, Toast- who is a year older than her- is only 412g. When I say this man is little, I mean this man is LITTLE

(He was also undeterred by being scooped after he got put back in his tub and is now roaming around trying to push over the decor again)

Poor Joel, I don't why he puts up with us.

He walked in with groceries to me going "hello, we're getting another rat? 👀"

"... what??"

".... well today in Kelsey Looked At Craigslist..."

"DAMN IT, BLOCK IT AGAIN!!"

😅😂💀 New baby at 2 today.

Fun little encounter last night that works as an example of what its like to live with me.

It was almost 11pm and I was getting creative with defrosting a frozen rat for my pet snake when my roommate suddenly appeared to witness my crimes. I did clean the bottle after! No medicine made direct contact with dead rodents i promise!

Nyem

Eagles are back! Heard them chirping a while ago.

Just let the gremlins out and spooked a bald eagle from my fence.

This is normal now?

How would you feel about fattening up an in shape gym rat? How big would you make them?

there's no limit. let's start at 400 pounds of rapidly acquired, sagging, demanding fat? you would be a gym blob. as if you did anything there except chug and suckle on your 32 ounce protein gainer shake and waddle along the treadmill while you listen to hypnosis of my voice telling you how fat you'll get?

Hi! I've seen all your lovely posts about your mice and I was wondering if you could help me?

I recently came into possession (they were dumped on me, yay! 🙃) of two baby male mice (both from the same litter), and while I've kept females before, I've never had males.

I've seen online that male mice can sometimes fight as they mature, even litter mates that can't see/smell females, and I'm a bit worried. Do you have any advice about how to avoid them falling out? Or is it just one of those things that might happen?

I'm also unsure of what the best option is when it comes to cage size. I have a smaller cage that's 55x39x29cm and a larger one that's 100x50x37cm. I know that bigger is considered better with most rodents, but again, I'm new to male mice, and I don't know if the larger cage might leave them feeling too exposed?

Thanks

I think a lot of people who raise only a small number of mice don't learn the difference between dominance scuffling and actual fighting, or how to tell if a mouse is actually stressed vs just experiencing an acute stress.

Male mice and even some female mice, will scuffle if a cage is ever completely cleaned. A lot of their social hierarchy is determined by scent and when you eliminate all of the scent from the environment, you wreak havoc on whatever social situation they've established and it must be re-established. This can seem like fighting! It can involve loud squeaking, physical scuffling, chasing, etc. However, social hierarchy scuffles should only last for a day or less. They do not typically draw blood. There shouldn't be tail rattling (no pet mouse should ever be a rattler, any ethical breeder will immediately cull a rattler). If all they are doing is squeaking, chasing, and tumbling about, it will calm down once they have figured out who is boss hog and who isn't, and be fine. Many people freak out about any scuffle and immediately separate because they think it's aggression or actual fighting and then they tell everyone else that male mice always fight. They don't. They can! But if they've been raised together and kept without females, the chance is pretty low.

If it lasts longer than a day or two, if blood is drawn (particularly if it's in more than one spot, or at genital locations, or on the fronts of their forelimbs), if they're popping and then freezing (as opposed to popping and then running about), if they are rattling their tail, that's aggression, not social drama. Those males must be separated, as they will almost certainly fight to the death if left together, and it can happen very quickly because aggressor males are relentless.

The other factor here is stress. Stressed mice are more prone to fighting, and even if they aren't fighting, having perpetually stressed mice is bad (it sometimes cannot be helped. Some mice stress about captivity regardless of any conditions which any ethical breeder should be paying attention to and culling/selecting to eliminate, in order to produce mice that are relaxed in a domestic setting). Heavily urine-soaked equipment is a sign of stress (and despite what some people will tell you it's not normal, they will tell you it's just males marking everything... It's not. If they're marking like this, it's because they're stressed. I work with thousands of mice daily and only some of the males do this, and it's always the ones showing other stress signs too, MOST of the male cages are not urine soaked). Food being chewed into dust. Popping and freezing. Tail rattling can also be a sign of acute stress. Frantic, twitchy motion. Poor coat quality, both in scruffy, dull coats but also over grooming. Sometimes this is just temperament from poor breeding, sometimes it's an environmental factor. This is where enclosure size and equipment can feature.

The "bigger is better" is only sort of true for mice. Most mice don't stress in a small cage as long as they have fresh food and water and a warm nest. That's the life! They have everything they need, they feel safe, they aren't stressing about having enough to eat or where to find water. They are simple prey creatures content to sleep and eat and be safe. Extra enrichment, like wheels, scent enrichment, various chews, climbing devices, alternating hides, treats, etc are all good too!

But what happens when most people increase enclosure size is that they don't also proportionally increase a) hides b) food sources c) water sources. So what you end up with is an enclosure where there's open space (bad, scary, stressful) that they have to cross to get to the one food or water source that may be far from their preferred nest. You can keep a mouse or mice in an enclosure the size of a house, provided you can cram it full of hides/equipment and provide enough feed and water locations that they feel as safe as they did in a cage the size of a shoebox. But people don't, so large enclosures end up being stressful as hell. Either of your enclosure sizes would work fine for your mice, it's just a matter of how much stuff you're going to put in. However much you think is enough when you set it up, add several more things. Then add some more.

As for what you can do, again the biggest factor with mice is scent. Never clean all the equipment at the same time. Never change all the bedding at the same time. If you need to clean the actual cage, pull most of the bedding into a bag, clean the cage itself, and put the bedding back. You can change the bedding a different day. Pick yourself up some ZuPreem fruitblend pellets to scatter around the cage as a forage treat after cage changes; they will be busy looking for those long enough they will often forget to even scuffle. You can get some dried lavender to put in the cage, there was a study done that suggested it has a calming effect, and even if it doesn't, it's good enrichment. Watch for signs of stress, and be prepared to separate if necessary, because you don't know their history or if their breeder cared about anything, but honestly it should be alright.

shoutout to that person who told my friends and I we should cull the "oops" rat litter they wound up having due to a mistake from someone else. My girls Latula and Porrim are having a great time being alive and getting cheerios <3