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New Rat Owner Here!

634 views 6 replies 4 participants last post by  Dark_Sama 
#1 ·
Hi, you can all call me ******, and I'm a first time rat owner. I only yesterday adopted three rats from Petco (which I've heard is actually not the best place to buy from but...) and I'm already in love with all of them. I was originally only going to get two, but the three boys that they had there were all very sweet when I held them and it was love at first nibble (on their part, not mine). They were really shy when I brought them home, but they're getting warmed up to me pretty fast (I think).
As I mentioned before, I've got three boy rats (large ones). They are Jellybean, Romeo (who is sitting on my shoulder grooming my hair as I'm posting this), and Biscuit. Romeo is the only one of the three that's let me handle him for longer than a few minutes without trying to run away, and none of the boys have done anything to me other then nibble a bit and pull on my fingernails a little. I've picked them all up no problem, even though the manager I talked to at the store said that they hadn't been handled much. So far so good, right?

Here's a picture of them (Biscuit is the one on the left, Romeo is in the middle, and Jellybean is on the right):
Cage Gerbil Degu Hamster Chinchilla


Their current cage is only temporary, I've already ordered a much larger one that should be here within a few days. Any advice that might help a newbie like me?
 
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#3 ·
I've been letting them get used to my place so far. I haven't been trying to do too much to them, other then letting them sniff at my hand. Romeo just seems to be the most relaxed of the three (he's sleeping on me right now) while the other two are a bit more wary, though not skittish. I hope they'll open up a bit more after a few days.
 
#5 ·
Welcome to the ratforum and congratulations on your fuzzy newcomers! My advice would be to handle them daily to bond and to start setting money aside for vets. Another important piece of advice is to find an exotics vet before you need one. It is always so stressful to find that your pets are ill but having the finances and vet lined up in advance makes the whole process so much smoother.
 
#7 ·
The place I got them from gave me the phone number and address to the nearest exotic vet, though I haven't actually called them yet to see if the vet has experience with rats (I'll do that after work today). I didn't even think about starting to set money aside (I've been spoiled with dogs/cats that never got seriously ill) so I'm going tone sure to do that from now on, thank you!
 
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