Pet rats day two
Like 1 Dislike 0 Published on 14 Mar 2015
The second day I have had my two young male pet rats. They are about 3 months old, young teens. Pet rats only live about 2 years or a little more. But they can be very affectionate and are extremely intelligent. I love watching these two boys wrestling happily together. The dark brown one seems to usually win the wrestling pinning moves. lol
They were very skittish the first day home, having not had a lot of handling yet, just being rudely grabbed up now and then at the pet store. They kept fleeing back to their hide house in their new cage with every single unfamiliar sound or movement..even my office chair creaking.
After a day they are starting to calm down and I'm successfully luring them out of their hiding hut to take fresh food treats from
my palm. I'm trying to train them to come to me because they like me, and not just grab them and pick them up. I make clucking noises and blow on the fresh food to distribute the aroma so they smell something good, and they come out of their little house to get it. They are slowly realizing that good things happen when they come to my hand.
Second day now here in this video, and I'm trying to get them used to my hands touching them, both with treats and without treats. This is the first day they have started climbing onto my hand without getting freaked out.
They are very gentle with my hand- you can see how they are continually sniffing and tasting it all over. They'll take one of my fingers in their little hands and taste with their tongues. When rats get very tame they will sometimes 'groom' you with their little tongues like a cat. They groom themselves that way like a cat does, to keep clean.
They like that spaghetti box open at both ends...a fun tunnel that eventually will be too small for them to go through. They like moving it around, and an empty toilet paper roll too. It's easy to find new toys around the house!
They have a really nice big new cage with multiple levels, but so far in the first 48 hours they have not explored much more than the ground floor. I can't wait until they discover the aerial hammocks up top!
They are on basic young rat food pellets diet they had at the pet store, but I've now added a variety of nutritious treats as well, like: apple, strawberry, almond, walnut, dried cranberry, fresh raw carrot, broccoli, red pepper, and brussels sprout. All in small quantities of course to suit their size. They love taking this fresh tasty new stuff from my hand.
The next step will be my trying to give them little scratches with my fingers while they are on my hand, and getting them to enjoy that and come to me for more petting. Rats supposedly love being scratched gently on the belly and chin and neck. We'll see! Once they come running to me to be pet and scratched, I'll start picking them up...hopefully in a week or two. That's the plan, anyway. :)
Sorry about the poor video quality- the light in my office in the evening is not bright enough, so the result was grainy.