If you like small furry rodents but think that cats > rats in terms of socialbility and lap-sitting, have you ever considered a chinchilla?

 

1. Most of the people in the LiveJournal ratties community (http://community.livejournal.com/ratties/5643407.html There is the link you were mentioned in. I’d bet in the next few days you may be cross-posted to the community “StupidPetOwners” due to the rats, and your apparent support of dogfighting) are in their late teens - early 30's, leaning much more towards the younger end of the spectrum. Hardly the stereotyped “rat ladies”

2. Most of the people in that community are extremely well-researched in rat care, and many have owned rats for years...rats who have lived to at least 2 years old more often than not. Those who are new to rat ownership often receive support and knowledge via the community.

3. “Raising” 100+ rats in a span of 10 years does not automatically make you the master of all that is rat. If someone kept 100 dogs in a matter of ten years, would that necessarily make them well-versed in knowledge about rat care and ownership? Hardly; more aptly, it would label them as irresponsible. At best, you were a questionable feeder breeder, and at worse, guilty of animal abuse.

 

http://www.goosemoose.com

Most of us, while female, aren't 50-60. The vast majority of the rat ladies are late teens/early 20's/30's.

Most of us have multiple rats, have had rats for years, and are extremely well-versed in rat care and needs. Many of the group are ethical breeders, rescuers, or both.

http://www.ratguide.org will back up most of the things the email you received said (except the 6-7 lifespan thing... the longest lived I've heard and believed were 5 year olds from an excellent breeder's lines).

My own rats, all of whom are rescues, are extremely healthy and look like they'll be with me a good while. Three of my four ladies are spayed and the two gents are neutered.

My upspayed gal is 28 months old and still going strong. She has started popping small fatty tumors, but they keep going away on their own with a no sugar diet. My youngest lived died at 21 months of a pituitary tumor. She was poorly bred and the PT was untreatable.

Some folks do lose rats terribly young, but it is normally due to poor breeding (normally via mills like rats sold in pet stores or bred by feeder breeders from pet store stock) causing genetic problems, accidents, or sudden things like PT, massive URI flare ups, pneumonia, or some such thing.

I'd say that most of us on the group get at least 2 years out of our kiddos. Spaying the girls increases the chances we'll have our friends around longer and quite a lot of us spay.

Honestly, I haven't read all your blog because what I have read makes me sad. I could never say such things about my rats as you say about yours, even jokingly. Not remembering who is who in pictures, saying you didn't get attached because they died too soon, and so forth.

My girl with the PT was put to sleep months ago and I still have days when I miss her so much I can barely breath. I'll remember and love her forever. She was worth all the money I spend on vet bills and all the pain I feel about her passing.

All rats deserve at least the amount of love given to them that they give to us. I don't think, from your words here, that your rats received that. It makes me sad.

Please, try to swallow your pride just a little bit and realize that you may be incorrect in some of your husbandry ideas. A lot of information has changed in the past years. More is known about rats now and we have many more resources available. Heck, I've seen relatively recent books at Half Price books that contain incorrect husbandry data!

If you get more rats, do them a favor and at least look at the well-meaning links you're going to get. The rats give us so much, the least we can do is take the best care of them that is possible.

Thanks for reading.
Leona

 

o my goodness the rat lady has spoken

 

You had me until this.

"All rats deserve at least the amount of love given to them that they give to us. I don't think, from your words here, that your rats received that. It makes me sad."

I enjoy anthropomorphizing as much as the next person, but I try to be realistic about it. Rats don't love you. Rats don't love each other. Love is a human emotion that's far beyond the cognitive abilities of any species humans regularly keep as pets. Perhaps higher animals like oh, dolphins or gorillas, can feel something like love, but I really do not know.

I do know that cats, dogs, rats, fish, birds, etc, don't love. They may display behaviors that mimic some of the symptoms humans associate with love, but these are evolutionary adaptations and instinctive behaviors, not conscious choices with an emotional undercurrent. Animals can do affection and curiosity and kindness, but it's not love.

My cat greets me at the door and follows me from room to room and sleeps on the bed beside me every night and sits most of the day in her chair beside my desk and purrs when I pet her and won't let anyone else pick her up or touch her. But it's not because she loves me. She's not capable of that in her little peanut cat brain. Her behaviors are a combination of imprinted behaviors, appreciation for food/treats, and personal preferences on her part. I've read way too much about biology and animal behavior studies to believe otherwise; sentimental children's books aside.

I like animals, but i try to be realistic about their capabilities and requirements. I was in a pointlessly long argument with some dog lover a year ago when I pointed out that dogs are filthy animals. They roll in filth, they eat poo, they don't clean or groom themselves, etc. It's not arguable; dogs are dirty. That doesn't mean you can't love them and appreciate their company, but by no stretch of the imagination are they not naturally filthy animals. My pointing this out, for reasons unclear to me, drove that one guy crazy.

The analogy extends to rats and love and longevity. (Although, rats are actually quite a bit cleaner than dogs, if kept in a cage which gives them the option of being clean.) My old rat cage was 4 feet deep with multiple levels, and had doors only on the top. If a rat wanted to stay out of my reach down below, it could do so indefinitely. None ever did since they liked to get out and be handled, but I didn't fool myself into thinking it was because they loved daddy, although I can see how that could be a comforting notion.

Speaking of rearing techniques and cruelty, perhaps this is a known issue amongst the rat fancier community, but I'd consider it very cruel to keep a rat alone, or in an aquarium. Rats are enormously social, and watching them interact in groups of at least 3 or 4 is fascinating. That's why I thought of them as a furry ant farm; it was so interesting to watch how they played with each other, while I enjoyed interacting with them myself as well, of course.

Activity level is another factor: I kept mine in a huge, 5x4x2 foot wire cage with dozens of levels and compartments and long clear spaces to run, I saw how incredibly active rats were, if given the chance. All of mine that grew up in that big cage loved to run and chase, so fast the entire cage would shake and sway, and they loved to wrestle, to climb, to run in a wheel, to have a variety of beds to sleep in, etc. Whenever I got a new rat, male or female, it would take them weeks to gain any kind of confidence to climb or explore, and they were always very tentative and slow, never really running that vigorously, or playing with the others, etc.

Raising a rat in an aquarium, even if you let it out regularly, is like raising a zoo animal in those old cement and metal bar enclosures, or keeping a big dog in a small apartment and only taking it on short walks. The animal can grow accustomed to the sensory deprivation it's enduring, but that doesn't make it appropriate treatment, whether it lives for 18 months or 3 years.

 

Here's the thing, though:

They don't live 18 months on average, but rather 24-36 months. And they don't often/regularly die during childbirth. I understand that that was your experience with them, but that's because they weren't receiving proper care. And your experience was consistent over so many rats because the level of care was also consistent.

 

I just wanted to point out that you are the soul of all that is evil. Did you know that rats sometimes get cold and that this is an established scientific fact? Despite this, your rats appear to be naked in all of your photos, excluding their natural fur which, lets face it, doesn't really count. But maybe that's how you get your kicks, psycho.

.....this was my favourite bit:

"If someone kept 100 dogs in a matter of ten years, would that necessarily make them well-versed in knowledge about rat care and ownership?"

....I think these we-may-be -crazy-but-we're-not-old ladies are forgetting a little something called the black plague. They killed 75 million people and now its time for revenge.

Anyway, I think it was in the bible that rats are naturally evil creatures and if you have one you're probably going to hell..... but I could be wrong. I'll have to check.

 

Hi--I'm here from livejournal. I can well believe we overgeneralized from reading a few comments, and you were right to point that out. And I guess I qualify as a "rat lady," although my husband is as fond of the rats as I am. However, in a few areas you are still factually wrong.

1) Some rats will die younger, as people will. However, with the proper care, our *average* age of death for rats is 2 years, a significant number live to 2 1/2, and we've had one pass 3. We've had eight to fifteen rats or so at a time over seven years, and we keep an exact database of dates.

2) However, proper care means vet visits, including surgery for mammary tumors. Honey, who recently died at 2 1/2, may well have had to be euthanized at 1 1/2 or so if we'd just let a tumor she got then grow and grow. Any pet deserves vet care.

3) You leave out the category of breeders who do love rats as pets and want to improve the breed--like, you know, responsible dog or cat breeders. One of them I know through LJ has produced many wonderful litters and just said she has had *ONE* female rat die giving birth. Rats are actually tough and good mothers, and based on what you say about your females dying, you were doing something wrong there, too. Even I, as a clueless newby, saw four females through litters without a hitch.

I'm glad you're no longer breeding rats, and I'm replying mostly because I don't want false info to encourage anyone to think of rats as disposable pets.

 

Re love:

Ah, we differ philosophically, in that I think that some evolved-adaptive mechanisms and instinctive behaviors *can* be called "love." In fact, I think more of human love is due to those than most people admit. We do make conscious choices, which rats do not, but I think a lot is deeply physiological, too.

One rat that I was especially close to grew lethargic and lost weight when I was away on a vacation; a vet found nothing wrong, and he perked up and gained some back as we were together again. Whatever one wishes to call that, it's rather nice and makes on feel values, right? And so I value them in turn, including with good vet care.

Also, I'm sure you're familiar with bruxing, the noise rats make when they are happy. Again, it's a sign of trust, no matter how conscious or unconscious, and makes me happy--rightly, I think.

 

"If someone kept 100 dogs in a matter of ten years, would that necessarily make them well-versed in knowledge about rat care and ownership?"

Haha, my bad, that was supposed to say "If someone kept 100 dogs in a matter of ten years, would that necessarily make them well-versed in knowledge about DOG care and ownership?" Quailty > quantity, right? Someone breeding dogs for 25 years who's never produced an animal worth its salt in the show ring/field/what-have-you doesn't neccesarily trump someone who's got multiple dual-champions and next to flawless health records, perfect temperaments, etc., and has only been breeding selectively for five years.

By the way, the Black Death was transferred to humans by fleas that were carried by rats, other animals, or people. Rats don't easily transfer disease to people without using some sort of "go between", and vice versa.

 

You can argue semantics over whether animals feel or express love, but it seems as though you're trying to deflect attention from the real issue at hand -- that you essentially had the rat equivalent of a puppy mill for your own personal gain, with equally disgusting conditions.

You've falsely stereotyped rat owners, but from what I've seen, the community has also regarded you as an abusive narcissist with little regard to the hundreds of lives that have depended on you for care.

Justify it any way you'd like. Whatever you can tell yourself so you can sleep at night.

 

I never dreamed there were so many sides to rat-ownership.

Next, i want some pics of you people. Expecting to see prominent front teeth and beady little eyes.

 

"You can argue semantics over whether animals feel or express love, but it seems as though you're trying to deflect attention from the real issue at hand -- that you essentially had the rat equivalent of a puppy mill for your own personal gain, with equally disgusting conditions."

I realize that you're choosing to speak from almost complete ignorance here, but I'd put the conditions my rats lived in against anyone. The vast majority of rat owners keep their rodents in a small aquarium, where they got no exercise or exploration. As I said in an earlier comment, if you raise rats in a small cage you're doing them a great disservice, and showing how little you know about the sort of environment rats actually enjoy living in.

As for my profitable rat mill... LOL! Spoken like someone who has never priced/sold rats on the open market. It might be possible to cover your expenses with a massive operation, or by breeding fancy rats to sell to a very niche market, but for any regular owner, there is nothing even resembling profit to be had by breeding rats. I usually had 4 or 5 females, since rats are so much happier and fun to own in packs, and I occasionally bought or borrowed a male for breeding purposes, and because it was funny to watch the female go crazy in heat from smelling the male in the next cage over. (I always kept M/F separate, and never bred any females until they were full grown.)

Pet stores paid about $1 a piece for baby rats when I was doing it, back in the mid/late-90s, and that came nowhere near covering the cost of the food a dozen baby rats ate in the 5 or 6 weeks between birth and salable size. Much less the time, labor, etc. (When I sold mine they were routinely 3 or 4 weeks ahead of most baby rats in size, since I fed them such a variety of food, rather than just formula rat chow, and had a nice large cage for them to play/exercise in.)

I bred rats because adult female rats love to have sex and raise young, because I had 2 snakes to feed, but mostly because baby rats are a ball. They grow up ridiculously fast, but they're cute and playful and so active, as the dozens of photos and descriptions on my baby rats photos page attest.

The problem is that litters are usually around a dozen, their mothers wean them around 3-4 weeks, and, and baby rats eat an unbelievable amount of anything placed within their reach. By 6 or 7 weeks you've got to decide if you're keeping them or what, since pet stores won't buy them past a certain size, and they will literally eat you out of house and home, and need to be M/F segregated by 2 months.

That's the reality of baby rats. Loads of fun, lots of them, very quick maturation, infinite reproductive potential. One solution is to deny your females the chance to ever be mothers, and deny yourself the fun of raising baby rats. The other is to let your females occasionally do as nature intends, and then do what you have to do with the resulting plague of juveniles. I usually kept one or two, and sold or froze the rest for snake food. And pretty clearly, that's what's at the heart of all the tenderhearted, "you treated your rats poorly!" complaints. Which is fine; lots of people, especially women, have no objectivity about small furry things and the harsh realities of life. Plus it makes for entertaining blog arguments.

 

I'd put the conditions my rats lived in against anyone.

Yea? Well, you'd lose that bet.

The vast majority of rat owners keep their rodents in a small aquarium, where they got no exercise or exploration.

You mean... the way you did with Janky and Bo after you moved? And then again after Bo got sick, instead of seeking veterinary care?

It might be possible to cover your ... by breeding fancy rats to sell to a very niche market

I'm not a breeder, but I'm pretty sure that's not the case.

One solution is to deny your females the chance to ever be mothers, and deny yourself the fun of raising baby rats. The other is to let your females occasionally do as nature intends, and then do what you have to do with the resulting plague of juveniles.

Ah, yes, "do what you have to do" because nature intended it. Come off it. "Nature intends" for baby rats to be kept in tiny aquariums in deplorable conditions, sick and lethargic until they are bought up and live-fed to a snake or other reptile? Really? You were breeding for yourself, if not for profit. Don't kid yourself that you were doing them some sort of favor.

I usually kept one or two, and sold or froze the rest for snake food. And pretty clearly, that's what's at the heart of all the tenderhearted, "you treated your rats poorly!" complaints. Which is fine; lots of people, especially women, have no objectivity about small furry things and the harsh realities of life.

God, what a load of sexist tripe. The problem isn't our lack of objectivity; the problem is the apathy, arrogance and willful ignorance you display towards animals. You may not have allowed your rats to subsist solely on canned corn, but you fed them corn daily. Corn is very likely to be contaminated with mycotoxins, which are carcinogenic for rats, and should be fed sparingly. But let's say you didn't know that. The floors of your cages appear to be made from wire mesh. This causes bumblefoot. But let's say you didn't know that, either.

But then there's this crap: I have a spacing layer of mesh on both sides of the bed, so they don't have to worry about an ear or tail being bitten while they're sleeping, but imagine if the walls of your house were chain link fence, and there were wild dogs just on the other side, trying to snap at you every second. It can't be real fun.

No, it can't. So why the hell did you maintain that environment?

Your rats, by your own admission, had mites, tumors, respiratory problems, eye infections and unidentified diseases. Instead of getting your rats medical help, you would let them die of treatable diseases or return them to the pet store, given the option. No wonder they averaged 18 months. Hell, I'm surprised they made it that long.

Then, of course, there's the callous attitude you take toward their deaths. Allowing interior decorating decisions to influence when you put a rat to sleep? Making glib comments about how the rat you allowed to escape will be killed and eaten? And we're supposed to think what of you?

 

I just read a book about rats (Rat : how the world's most notorious rodent clawed its way to the top -- Jerry Langton) and you'd probably find the chapter on "rat people" amusing -- well worth checking out at your library, at least. ;)

 

Run flux, the rat-lady population is up in arms!

 

Rats laugh when you tickle them.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8077595600892898093