Hello,
My name is Taylor and I am a new rat owner! My Dad is a vet and I am currently in school at University of Florida to become a vet as well (applying this fall). I love most animals way more than normal people and have always wanted to own small animal pets. I currently own two female gerbils (Luna and Lilith) and as of last week I acquired three 8 week old female rats (Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup). How I ended up with them is actually a pretty bizarre story that I thought yall might be interested in.....About 2 weeks before Christmas, I decided to go to Petsmart and buy a rat because everyone in my family refused to get me one for Christmas. Somehow I got talked into buying a 4 month old male feeder rat (about the size for feeding a python) who had never been handled before (dont ask me why I was so stupid). I also ended up buying about 200 dollars worth of cage materials and etc for him too. I let him get used to his environment before I began to socialize him and attempted everything I could to get him used to me without being too aggressive.......long story short by January 20th I still could not even touch him (named Alphonse) and he would attack me for no reason. After being bit (to the bone) over 13 times, I was getting pretty sick of him, I had never seen such an aggressive rat. He wouldn't hiss or act scared, he was at this point biting me for pure enjoyment. I ended up calling it quits last week and tried to find him a place to go, because the last straw was when I went to feed him and he ran out of his hunt unprovoked and bit me straight though the side of my hand and would not let go ( I had to give myself stitches). After calling many local pet stores (could not find any breeders) my only option ended up having to put him to sleep. Unfortunately, Petsmart refused to take him or even see him because he was so aggressive...which is bullshit because I know how they euthanize rats and they dont even have to touch them. I ended up taking him to a reptile house because they were nice enough to take him as a feeder rat again (which made me feel bad but I didnt have a choice). After talking to the women in the store for awhile, they were nice enough to trade me 3 babies for Alphonse since I'd had such and awful time with him and still wanted to own rats. Anyways, that's how I ended up with the sweetest trio of rats. Two are sisters (Blossom and Bubbles) and one is from another litter (Buttercup). Bubbles and Blossom are both doing great and even come to the side of the cage and crawl in my hands, Buttercup is still timid and runs when I open the cage door, but I am sure she will start coming around eventually. I love them so much.
Thanks for reading my story and I'm very excited to become more involved in the rat communities online.
My name is Taylor and I am a new rat owner! My Dad is a vet and I am currently in school at University of Florida to become a vet as well (applying this fall). I love most animals way more than normal people and have always wanted to own small animal pets. I currently own two female gerbils (Luna and Lilith) and as of last week I acquired three 8 week old female rats (Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup). How I ended up with them is actually a pretty bizarre story that I thought yall might be interested in.....About 2 weeks before Christmas, I decided to go to Petsmart and buy a rat because everyone in my family refused to get me one for Christmas. Somehow I got talked into buying a 4 month old male feeder rat (about the size for feeding a python) who had never been handled before (dont ask me why I was so stupid). I also ended up buying about 200 dollars worth of cage materials and etc for him too. I let him get used to his environment before I began to socialize him and attempted everything I could to get him used to me without being too aggressive.......long story short by January 20th I still could not even touch him (named Alphonse) and he would attack me for no reason. After being bit (to the bone) over 13 times, I was getting pretty sick of him, I had never seen such an aggressive rat. He wouldn't hiss or act scared, he was at this point biting me for pure enjoyment. I ended up calling it quits last week and tried to find him a place to go, because the last straw was when I went to feed him and he ran out of his hunt unprovoked and bit me straight though the side of my hand and would not let go ( I had to give myself stitches). After calling many local pet stores (could not find any breeders) my only option ended up having to put him to sleep. Unfortunately, Petsmart refused to take him or even see him because he was so aggressive...which is bullshit because I know how they euthanize rats and they dont even have to touch them. I ended up taking him to a reptile house because they were nice enough to take him as a feeder rat again (which made me feel bad but I didnt have a choice). After talking to the women in the store for awhile, they were nice enough to trade me 3 babies for Alphonse since I'd had such and awful time with him and still wanted to own rats. Anyways, that's how I ended up with the sweetest trio of rats. Two are sisters (Blossom and Bubbles) and one is from another litter (Buttercup). Bubbles and Blossom are both doing great and even come to the side of the cage and crawl in my hands, Buttercup is still timid and runs when I open the cage door, but I am sure she will start coming around eventually. I love them so much.
Thanks for reading my story and I'm very excited to become more involved in the rat communities online.