This page was eaten by mysterious intermet gremlins and is under construction... come back in a while and hopefully it will be restored!

 (The following is very much a work in progress)

Got Ratz?

New to ratkeeping? Check out this page for some ratty basics, including Housing, Food, Toys, Varieties, and Health.

Housing

A rat cage is an important part of ratkeeping for two reasons: (1) Your rats will presumably spend most of their life in their cage  and  (2) If your rats are not in a cage, they are probably either getting in trouble or crawling through your shirt.  That being said...

Ideally a rat cage should have a plastic base, and the rest should be powder-coated wire (or PVC coated). Multiple floors and balconies are great for making the best use of space and hanging toys. The wire spacing should be small enought that a young rat can't squeeze through- if the bars are spaced 1 x 1 inch apart, chances are your rat will not stay in the cage for very long. 1" x 1/2" inch spacing will keep your rats in their cage. Confused? Martins Cages sells rat cages that meet all of these standards; their cages come in many sizes, plus they are lightweight, sturdy, and escape-proof. Best of all they are endorsed by my rat Buckwheat. :)

Food

Whatever you do, don't buy hamster or bunny food for your rats. Hamster food is generally a seed mix, it is way too high in protein and fat. Alfalfa pellets (for bunnies) are not for rats either, alfalfa cantains basically no nutrition that rats can use.

I feed my rats a variation of Suebee's Diet. It is a combination of Nutro "Lite" dog food, mixed with various people-cereals and a few other things. Click here to see Suebee's rat diet page. It's not hard to make this stuff, and you don't have to make a lot of it all at once, as long as you get the proportions right. Best of all, rats like it! This is also endorsed by Buckwheat.

Treats, Toys, and Games

Rats are very intelligent critters and need stimulation! A variety of toys, games, and treats will keep their bodies and minds active, and research has shown that a rat who lives in an enriched environment is actually smarter than one who lives in a plain boring cage. I have a seperate page devoted to toys, treats, and games, click here to see it. A basic summary though:

Treats: Nearly any people-food is an ok treat for a rat, but too many fatty treats will lead to an unhealthy rat! Fruits and veggies make great treats and rats love them. My girls' favorite snack is grape halves.

Toys: The best toy a rat ever had is probably a plain cardboard box. Don't bother spending tons of money on hideaway logs, ferret toys, and plastic tubes; all you need is a few empty boxes, crumpled paper, and a cloth hammock. Toys don't need to be expensive, as long as there is a variety of them.

Games: There are a nunch of rattie games listed on my other page, so I won't describe them all here... but playing games with your ratties is fun (of course) and it helps new ratties to bond with you.

Varieties of Rats

Rats come in all sorts of colors, markings, and varieties. Rats come in many colors, and each shade of a color has it's own name. But basically, there is white, black, grey, and any shade from dark brown to beige as solid colors. An agouti rat has bands of different colors on each hair. Breeders often call grey rats "blue," there is no such thing as an actual Crayola-blue rat.

Some markings of rats are self (one solid color), berkshire (white belly), irish (white chest), hooded (colored head and white body), siamese or himalayan (dark points, white/cream body), capped (color on top of head) and husky (large spots of color all over) as well as some others.

And then... there are different body types of rats too! Rats can vary in size, there are hairless, rex (curly fur), tailless, double-rex (almost hairless), and dumbo (big, low-set ears) rats.

The best part is, there can be almost any combination of these traits on a rat. You could have a double-rex, tailless, dumbo, seal-point siamese rat if you wanted (if you could find one)!!! Isn't it great?!?!?