Hello!

Hi! It’s been a long time since I’ve been a part of a forum! A little about me: My husband and I have been together for 10 years now, married for 5. We live in central New York. I’m a stay at home mom of our 4 kids, ages 7,5,3, and 9 months. We also have quite the zoo going, a dog, 3 cats, 2 guinea pigs, and a snake... and now 2 ratties!

We just got two female rat babies for my three year old, after an awful experience with a hamster! We’ve only had them for a few days so I am still doing loads of research. My girl lovingly dubbed her pets Cookie and Cake, and is in absolute love with them, as are we all really! My husband said he wants to get rid of all our other animals and just get rats.

We have a small cage for now, in the next month I’d like to get a critter nation cage. We had one for our sugar gliders years ago and it was fantastic! They have a hut, tunnel, hammock, lava ledge, and wooden bird ladder in there now.

I’m currently trying to figure out bedding, we have carefresh in there now but our ratties are sneezing like crazy.

I just got a small bag of kaytee rat meal when we got them and was mixing that with a handful of dog food (nutro essentials ), per the Country Max store we got them from. Well, they feed them bird seed, blocks, and dog food but said the kaytee was fine. I have since ordered a bag Teklad Global 2018 and am planning on going to the grocery store to put together a mix I found online (of rolled oats, puffed rice, puffed wheat, toasted oats, Total, egg noodles, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, dried bananas, dried cranberries, and roasted soy nuts). I don’t think I’ll need the dog food then? I’m not seeing much of anything about dog food online for them.

Our water has fluoride in it... should I be buying bottled water for them then?

Also, all day yesterday, Cookie has been sleeping on the shelf, wrapped around or inside of the food dish.... is she just weird? Could she have been hot? It was on the warm side in the room. But until then, she’d been sleeping curled in the bedding in the corner, or inside the hut with Cake. It was much cooler though so I’m wondering if she was just hot?

Hi, welcome to the forum

congrats on the ratties
Please read the rules of this forum as we are a rat rescue forum and have different standards then other sites
https://www.ratshackforum.com/threads/please-read.29217/

You will find the Reference Thread useful ….. it contains quite a bit of good info, including good info regarding diet and nutritional needs https://www.ratshackforum.com/threads/reference-thread-read-only.35894/

Chlorine is very unhealthy for rats and fluoride causes brain tumours so yes, you will not want to give them water that contains either of those

Teklad and oxbow are the two good types of rat blocks … if your rats are babies then the 2018 is ok for now, but rats require low levels of protein so you will want the 2014 formula. Rats should not be getting dog food as it is unhealthy for them. As mentioned, please see the reference thread
The mix you found is not healthy .... and will not meet their nutritional needs.
You can look into buying a bag of oxbow rat blocks locally (the adult ones are fine for rats of all ages), or feed things like cooked organic real steel cut or stone ground oatmeal or 12 grain cereal, cooked organic quinoa , and a variety of daily vegs - see the forbidden foods list in the reference thread

Cookie may be warm, or she may just like to sleep in the food dish

You will need to find a good vet with the knowledge and experience to treat rats or a good vet that likes rats and is willing to learn. Having a good vet is essential for rat owners because rats become ill and die fast - by the time you notice they are ill, you are in a medical emergency - it is important to handle them a couple of times a day so that you will notice if there is any small change in behaviour etc as it could indicate illness.
In a few months you will need a good vet with the knowledge and experience to safely spay rats https://www.ratshackforum.com/threads/why-spay-or-neuter-rats.35402/

Please buy the critter nation as soon as possible as babies need a lot of space to run and climb and lay and develop properly.

I hope this info helps

Welcome to the forum! I have quite a zoo at my house as well!

I currently use Exquisicat recycled paper bedding. It's not dusty at all and doesn't have a scent to it. My rats love it and use their litterboxes very well with this stuff.
I just switched from Kaytee brand to Oxbow brand. While Kaytee ends up being slightly cheaper, my rats now prefer Oxbow over Kaytee as their staple stuff. I prefer it as well simply because it's easier to mix in with other stuff. They also tend to store Oxbow a lot less than Kaytee. Carefresh, at least from I've seen and felt, tends to be dusty and has an obnoxious odor to it (in my opinion).

A lot of use here will use fleece, myself included. While it requires a little more cleaning, it does eliminate the dust worry with rats.

As for the water containing elements not healthy for rats, fish dechlorinator is an option, along with buying bottled water for them. I used to have fish, so I have tons of these little dechlorinators lying around. Fortunately, my water does not contain chlorine or fluorine, so I actually have very little use for them.

My rats get dog food as treats every so often. They love it. They love dog treats as well. My dog always gives me a funny look when I take a handful and pull it upstairs without giving him all of it.

SQ said:

I hope this info helps

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Thank you SQ! That’s all very helpful! I just ordered the critter nation earlier today. I already have a wonderful vet who is well versed in all exotics and familiar with ratties. We take all our animals to him and in the past he’s also seen our sugar gliders and my chin. I was planning to switch to the 2014 rat brick when they get a little older, but may look into the oxbow now. It is definitely easier to obtain. I’ll look into better mixes then and hold off.

Thanks too Vicious! I’ll look into that bedding. I was considering fleece, sewing some fleece pillow case style and putting the critter nation cage trays in it with a puppy pad like with the piggies... but I’m also looking at the scatter tray insert and sticking with paper bedding. So many decisions!

I’m going to look into our water more, test it if I can’t find reliable numbers. We do have a filtered water dispenser on our fridge but I’m not sure if that takes out fluoride and chlorine. I do think I have some of those drops, I’ll have to see if they’re expired. We used them for my son’s African clawed frog’s tank. Or I can buy jugs, isn’t the end of the world!

Oh and I read all the rules before posting It isn’t my first time in a forum setting, I’ve been very active for many years in other places, it’s just been a while since then haha I have to get my footing again for sure! So I know the general gist of things. I’m happy to be here!