What are the statistics on how many dumped/lost pet rats there are?

[RatsDrawBlood]

What percentage of outside rats are pure wild? Someone just saw a rat and thinks it goes without saying that it's wild - because what are the chances that it had been a pet - and that surely an escape or abandonment would be a rare freak incident. :/

 

[Olympia✨]

Hm, not sure about the statistics but around here where I live in the U.K. the only rats we see rarely are brown wild rats, usually in parks and hills. I’ve never seen a pet rat though, how do you know it’s wild? Are it’s markings breeder-specific?

 

[RatsDrawBlood]

The other of the two recent neighbors who assumed that rats are pests to be exterminated rather than companions to be rescued, was who since the rat looking at the person was black-and-white rather than all dark, therefore I commented that maybe the reason it was looking at them was that it was someone's pet and so thought the person would feed them. The response was, "Oh, I thought it was a rat."! Some actually think that rats are only pests or lab animals, so only if it were a hamster could it be a pet!

 

[lilspaz68]

There are no statistics. But it's very rare our domesticated rats will survive long outside. They have been bred to be less aggressive, etc all the things a wild rat needs to survive.

 

[lilspaz68]

Wilford are almost always agouti, with sometimes moderate Berkshire markings. Anything else would be domestic IMO

A LOT of rats are dumped because people think they can live in the wild.

 

[RatsDrawBlood]

Wilford

I'm assuming that's typo for "wild".
And someone can correct me if wrong, but I'm understanding this as: no one's ever had a way of making an educated guess on how many tame rats go free per year, nor how much of the loose population is domesticated, but that no matter how high the former may be, the latter does end up pretty insignificant.

with sometimes moderate Berkshire markings

Oh okay so, seeing that face that's dark on top but white on bottom, didn't necessarily mean it came from a tame line. I think I get it now.

 

[SQ]

Many pet rats are dumped outside, some live awhile, and some have babies ........ so many rats outside are dumped pets, feral pets or half domestic ......... pets, feral pet rats and half domestic rats can not survive long in the wild as their wild instincts have been bred out of them, they do not have the startle reactions of a wild rat etc ...... a face that is dark on top but white on bottom is a pet, or the offspring of a dumped pet.

And a dumped pet agouti self rat would look like it might be a wild rat but would be a pet in need of help
So from markings you can tell for certain that it is a pet, but you can not tell for sure from markings that it is not a pet