Rescued Rat Tonight

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Moon said:
Oxbow is a great diet but some rats don't take to it and most take to it quickly at first and get sick of it, LOL. If, when you get it, you think this is happening you can try giving it to him frozen, some people have had luck feeding it that way.

Don't worry too much if he's not eating the "recommended intake"... if he's an older rat he may not need as much, and treats and whatnot can certainly fill them up too.

Oh great! I didn't know that, thank you for the advice!

I am getting ready to upload some pictures :)
 
Pictures of the little rescuee! Click to view larger in new window.

Here is his temporary cage until the Critter Nation arrives (unfortunately it is on back order so now I wish I had gotten a larger cage). I feel bad having to keep him in that tiny little thing with no levels to climb on. He mostly sleeps in the bird snuggle sack I got for him. I put in that ferret hammock until I can order some nice ones from the folks here, but he doesn't seem to be interested in it right now. He doesn't seem to be a big chewer either. I expected him to chew up some of those fabrics or at least nibble on the paper towel roll, but nothing yet.


Here's the little guy using the hammock as a shelter.


Here are some pictures of him cleaning, scratching, and exploring a chair I covered with a fleece blanket. After our vet appointment, and once the CN arrives, I will be looking for a new friend for him so that he isn't lonely. I know rats typically live in colonies, and there's no telling how he might feel after losing his previous companion so suddenly. I have always been fond of those Himalayan rats or Seal Point Siamese, it would be neat to find one that needs rescuing. In the meantime, I am keeping my eye out on Petfinder for any males in the area.
















 
OMG! He is one gorgeous man rat!! :thud: :thud: That pink nose and ears! :thud: Great rescue! As mentioned earlier, by Joanne, if you put him on your shoulder maybe he will whisper his name in your ear :nod:

This little guy's past has brought him to you; now let the lovin begin or I suspect the word I should have used is continue... :heart:

When I look at my boys as they are eating a veggie or fruit for the first time in their life and they look up at me, I just about burst with love!! :nod: :heart: and their thought bubble reads: This is Good Livin!! :lol:
 
I do think he's handsome! What would I call him, color-wise? I know he's standard, as opposed to rex, hairless, etc. But I often see people saying things like agouti and hooded (I assume that is a reference to the color/markings). Anyone know what this guy is?
 
He's a black berkshire. Black obviously being the coat color, berkshire being his marking (solid color with a white belly).
 
If you want to see pictures/descriptions of other colors/markings that you're curious about, feel free to PM me. I've had just about every color come through the rescue, so I have pictures of everything :)
 
He is gorgeous! I was expecting someone in much worse condition, but he looks great!!!! And don't worry too much about the little cage, his CN will come eventually and as long as you take him out a lot, he will be fine until then
 
He looks so lovely and squishable!
I got Oxbow for my ratties early on, but they really didn't like it! I think only one out of eight would eat it. They much prefer Harlan.
 
He is so handsome! and lucky to have found someone like you who can afford to spoil him with a CN!
 
Physically he looks and feels great. He's not thin or anything so I know he's been eating. The woman said she had had him for about 2 weeks so I know he was being fed for that period of time. He probably wasn't abandoned for too long before she found him. He really lucked out the way things went, in my opinion.

And I agree. I've always wanted to get a CN for a pet. I was getting it for my future hedgehog (with some safety modifications), but it will be much more fun to decorate for a rat who likes to climb. Hedgies climb, too, but they can seriously injure themselves in a fall so it's not like I would have hammocks and ropes all over the place. I was even going to create a wall on the shelf to block it off, and use a dryer vent to create a tunnel that spirals down to the bottom of the cage as opposed to the ramp it comes with. I won't need to make special modifications for the rats.

I am still trying to name him. I can't think of anything fitting, and he's too shy to tell me. I know something will hit me at some point, and fit perfectly.
 
So Sammy, my dog, heard the rat sneeze and slowly approached the cage, ears pricked forward, body stiff. She presses her nose against the bars, and the little rat scuttles over to her, wraps his little hands on the bars, and sticks his nose right out of the cage against the dog's nose. She wagged her tail, and laid down beside the cage. I'm starting to think Sammy thinks the rat is a miniature dog, and she just wants to play. It's hard to tell. I still won't open the cage with her around, but she hasn't made any sudden movements with her mouth at all (if she even THINKS about opening those chops of hers...). I keep watching, and the little rat really seems to like her. He keeps approaching her and watching her, and she just wags her little nub of a tail... Now she is laying upside down in the middle of the floor with her little orange squeaky ball in her mouth, haha. I will have to video these events for you guys to see on my youtube channel! Through all the cleaning recently, I misplaced my video camera. I will need to find it in the morning!
 
None of my rats are afraid of dogs. My one dog Turner has been around rats before and is very good with them, but my younger dog Angus was never around them. I just let the rats come up to the dogs on their own, the rats had no fear of them and it throws Angus off. He just wanted to run away from them lol. He is now fine to be around them, as long as I am there to supervise. He likes watching them, but if they try to crawl on him he tucks his tail and runs. I think the fact that the rats run towards the dogs instead of away throws the dogs off, so they don't usually have the urge to chase them. But each dog is different, so just be careful when they are finally introduced outside of the cage.
 
Pixie said:
None of my rats are afraid of dogs. My one dog Turner has been around rats before and is very good with them, but my younger dog Angus was never around them. I just let the rats come up to the dogs on their own, the rats had no fear of them and it throws Angus off. He just wanted to run away from them lol. He is now fine to be around them, as long as I am there to supervise. He likes watching them, but if they try to crawl on him he tucks his tail and runs. I think the fact that the rats run towards the dogs instead of away throws the dogs off, so they don't usually have the urge to chase them. But each dog is different, so just be careful when they are finally introduced outside of the cage.

Yeah, with Sammy I probably won't be doing any outside-of-the-cage introductions. At least for a very long time (or until she completely ignores it for awhile). She shows way too much interest. Her cattle dog instincts are extremely strong. She shows every characteristic of the breed, and has the urge to herd children and even strangers who come onto the property (she is fine with strangers off of the property and loves to go up and be petted, but at home, she'll bark to alert me that there is a stranger outside, and when I let the guest inside, she eyes them the whole time. If they make any sudden movements, she springs up like she's about to nip at their heels). Since we are still working on this behavior (slowly since I don't have many guests over), I definitely don't want any mishaps with the small animals in the home.

Sometimes she'll slowly approach the cage in a herding stance, and I shout "hey" to misdirect her attention. I can't tell if she's just slowly approaching because she's not sure about it, or trying to hunt it!

Nonetheless, I don't see these two ever getting to run around together. Maybe when Sammy gets older and lazier LOL
 
He's been acting kind of strange today.

First, this morning he tried to take a bite out of my finger. I figured it might have been the stuff they had rubbed in my fingers when I had my acrylic nails removed. I had washed my hands, but thought maybe he could still smell it with his keen sense of smell, so I went on with my day as usual.

Then tonight he's been acting so lively. He sprang out of his big snuggle sack that is hanging in his cage. I had bought an all natural dog biscuit for Sammy and one for him, too. I broke a piece off and gave it to him through the bars. He snatched it like a madman and ran over to the other side of his cage to nibble on it. Whenever my hand would go near the cage, he would spring over to it and reach through the bars. Sammy was sniffing the cage, and I was even worried he'd try to bite her nose! Normally I worried about the opposite happening!

Maybe this is just normal behavior for rats. I'm hoping you guys could give me some insight. In the last several days he's been very calm and withdrawn. I usually had to coax him out of his little snuggle house. I would even stick my finger in and scratch behind his ear, and he really liked it. I could hold him, and do pretty much whatever I wanted, he was just so relaxed. So now, after his attempt to stick my finger in his mouth, and the whole springing around like a lunatic, has really startled me.

Maybe he's just feeling better? xD

Even after all the times I scooped him up out of the cage, he would either be fine with it or sometimes squeak a little, but never bite. Now I'm worried that if I stick my hand in there, he's going to take a chunk out of it. >.>; Before he was like, "Whatever," whenever I wanted to mess around with his cage, and now he jumps out of his house like, "What's going on!?" and I'm not sure if he wants to bite me or he's just being a normal curious little rat. The behavior has just taken me by surprise since he has acted totally different in the last week that I have had him. It is a sudden change, not something that has occurred gradually.
 
Today he's acting more relaxed. I was able to scratch him behind the ear without him wanting to nibble my hand. I'm starting to think he was just in a great mood yesterday, or maybe he was just really hungry (even though I have been feeding him well).
 
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