[Charmify]

I adopted my new baby rat Lux about 2 weeks ago. She is super friendly when she is in the cage, like she'll come up and sniff and let me pet her, but as soon as she realizes i'm going to pick her up she freaks out and runs away. I've tried everything I can think of! She just doesn't like to handled! Any ideas on socializing her? She is the 5th rat that I've had and I've never experienced such a 'dislike' (for lack of a better word) of being handled! Thanks for your ideas! -Jessica

 

[DaisyNDahlia]

Dahlia is like this. I just scoop her up rather then putting my big hand over her and I kind of force her to be held. She's 3 months old now and still doesn't like it much but isn't as skittish as she was.

 

[jensenee]

This is going to sound a little strange.. But my rat Niko was just like this when I first got him. What I ended up doing was getting a hooded sweatshirt, sleeping with it and wearing it a lot for a couple of days. Then I put it on backwards, placed Niko in the hood of the sweatshirt, and held the hood closed for 15 minutes. Niko tried to get out and pooped and peed all over in the hood but after a while he just gave in and sat in the hood for the last five minutes. After that I took him out handled him a bit more and after that he never had a problem with me handling him!

It might be worth a shot!