Hello

[$uger_&_$pice]

My rats are fairly new, and they sleep all day and do nothing but eat all night. I'm wondering if they are just anti-social, but a friend had rats and they were always playing and having fun, and ive seen youtube videos where rats are so cute and playful, if i try to hold them or put them down they just run for the shadows and hide. Do my rats just have a weird personality, or am I not holding them enough? Please contact me

 

[$uger_&_$pice]

Day 2. Please anyone respond

 

[SqueakingJellybean]

How old are they? How often do you handle them, and for how long? What sort of cage setup do they have? How about toys? What are you feeding them? How long have you had them?

There are lots of possible contributing factors. The more you can tell us about their circumstances, the more help we can potentially offer.

Rats are like people— it can take time to develop relationships with them. Some connect almost right away, while others can take months. Be patient, and take this time to do some research. I recommend reading through the forums here, and checking out a couple of YouTube channels: Shadow the Rat, Emiology, and The Rat Guru.

Replies may take time. Please have patience.

 

[Robotsonmars]

My advice is that the way to a rats heart is through their stomach. I’ve always had pretty good success with giving them treats every time I walk by. Once they’re not cowering in fear I’ll start training them to know it’s ok when I touch them by briefly touching them and then giving a really high value treat. As they get more comfortable you can touch them for longer periods of time or try stroking them a bit. Once they’re truly comfortable with that then you can start picking them up for longer and longer amounts of time while giving them treats just like you did for the other process.

There are some rats that just truly don’t like being touched though, and I think it’s important to respect that (not saying that’s the case here, it’s hard to tell until you’ve done some work letting them know you won’t hurt them). It’s important to be able to briefly pick them up so that has to happen no matter what, but if your rat continues to be genuinely uncomfortable with pets and being picked up there are ways to work around it. This might also change with time as some rats just take a long time to get comfortable with you! After a few weeks of having them you’re likely to notice a big difference in how comfortable they feel.

My solution to getting shy rats back into the cage after free roaming is to 1: wait for them to climb on top of the cage or somewhere it takes them time to get down and put them away then, or 2: wait for them to go back in the cage themself and just close the door behind them. I always make sure to give them a big treat once they’re back in the cage so they don’t learn to fight it. Eventually they might even start going back in on their own when they see you have their special treat, or go in the cage to beg for treats.

Good luck with your rats! Just be patient and I’m sure they’ll warm up to you eventually.

 

[Ratsarebeautiful8]

Definetly tryout lots of little treats my boys love malt paste you can buy it from Amazon they go cooo coo for it ha also they love !, eggs hard boiled scrambled fried they love it all but be sure not to put anything other then egg with it and for my daily treat I use plain cheerios they also love! Cheerios

 

[Ratsarebeautiful8]

My trick to get my really shy and bitey rat back into the cage is by having one of his hides with a bottom out near him and lightly drawing him out with a treat then making it seem like there is no other safe dark place other then the house and he goes in because he wants somewhere to eat that yummy lil treat one of my rats Louie wich is my profile pick he will only chill if I feed him cheerios he will sit on my lap and eat eat eat and if he doesn’t have any he will start to freak out and want to go back into the cage