4 month old female

The Rat Shack Forum

Help Support The Rat Shack Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Kasumi

New Member
Joined
Jan 24, 2021
Messages
1
Location
TN
Hi, me and my wife recently decided to get a young female rat from a nice local pet shop. We have her all situated in her new enclosure and when we got to hold her at the pet store she was really sweet and snuggly. Once we got her home we sat by her cage just to look at her and for her to get used to us. My wife and I are bird people so we thought it best to give her time to adjust just like you would with a new little birdie friend. The next day we gave her a little bit of applesauce on a spoon, but she’s a lot more timid today than she was in the shop. She won’t let us pet her because she gets too nervous. We’re worried that maybe she won’t take a liking to us, or perhaps we both may be overthinking things. We just want to do right by our new little friend. We’re also worried that maybe she might not be for us. What do you guys all think?
Any recommendations?

Edit: it’s been a week and any attempt on petting her has resulted in some minor nips, we’re so worried about her biting us that we can’t socialize her to get her out of the cage to socialize...We might just have to surrender her back to the pet store.. We really want it to work out with her because she really does seem sweet, but we’ve done everything from “eeping” when she bites to spoon training, but as soon as it comes to anything revolving around our hands she’s too fearful of us.
We both think that she just wasn’t socialized enough when she was at the shop, but I’ll just be honest to we don’t have enough experience to train these bad behaviors out of her...
We’re not sure what to do at this point.
 
Hi, me and my wife recently decided to get a young female rat from a nice local pet shop. We have her all situated in her new enclosure and when we got to hold her at the pet store she was really sweet and snuggly. Once we got her home we sat by her cage just to look at her and for her to get used to us. My wife and I are bird people so we thought it best to give her time to adjust just like you would with a new little birdie friend. The next day we gave her a little bit of applesauce on a spoon, but she’s a lot more timid today than she was in the shop. She won’t let us pet her because she gets too nervous. We’re worried that maybe she won’t take a liking to us, or perhaps we both may be overthinking things. We just want to do right by our new little friend. We’re also worried that maybe she might not be for us. What do you guys all think?
Any recommendations?

Edit: it’s been a week and any attempt on petting her has resulted in some minor nips, we’re so worried about her biting us that we can’t socialize her to get her out of the cage to socialize...We might just have to surrender her back to the pet store.. We really want it to work out with her because she really does seem sweet, but we’ve done everything from “eeping” when she bites to spoon training, but as soon as it comes to anything revolving around our hands she’s too fearful of us.
We both think that she just wasn’t socialized enough when she was at the shop, but I’ll just be honest to we don’t have enough experience to train these bad behaviors out of her...
We’re not sure what to do at this point.
I'm so sorry no one replied sooner. Rats are very social creatures- she absolutely needs a friend or two. When they're in a new place taken from their family it's terrifying but having a friend could be just the trick to her warming up.

Because this is your first time owning rats I have to ask- what food is she eating.? And what bedding do you have for her cage.?
 
Back
Top