Has anyone gone this route? One just relocated to my area from a big city to the north of me and I’m kind of interested, but still a little worried about the crazy I might encounter.
I’ve joined several rat forums and it can get down right scary at times. Whole rooms set aside for 2-5 rats, ALL store bought foods are poison/evil/unhealthy, if you don’t spend $$$ to save an elderly rat you are a child of Satan, etc.
My four boys (Hyde, Brodi, Stripey and Skunky) from Pet Smart are fed store bought food mixed with fresh fruit and veggies, are allowed out of their cage nightly, and have plenty to chew on. They are almost a year old and are starting to look rough. Not sickly, just old and worn. They sleep more and no longer frolic around.
The main reason I want to go the breeder route is 1. I want to start out with younger ones and 2. I want them to have been handled from birth.
I always had a pet rat as a kid and as an adult I always had one around for the kids. I never kept more than 1. I fed mostly human food but always had some grain on hand from the pet shop. It seemed like they usually lived about 2 1/2 to 3 years. I always bought them as feeders so they were very young and handled a lot. I don’t think I ever had a bad one. As an adult I captured a baby wild rat and kept him in my shop. He tamed down just like the domestic ones but eventually reverted back to being wild once he started breeding.
Oh dear god, run far far away from rat fanciers. They’re bizarre humans for whom no one is good enough to adopt one of their precious rats.
I tried to get a rat from a “rat rescue”, ie, a rat-hoarder who was appalled that I wanted to get a baby and not an adult rescue rat in need. She made send her photos the cage I planned to use, plus a questionnaire about what brand of rat food I was going to buy, the name of an exotic animal vet who would take care of my rat if he got sick- eventually she told me that she would only allow me to adopt a (older) rat if I purchased this specific, expensive rat food she recommended, plus I had to buy one of her special rat-carriers, since a cardboard box lined with newspaper would not be sturdy enough to take my potential rat to the vet.
Instead, I went to an exotic pet shop that specialized in reptiles. I asked for two female weanling feeder rats, and I picked the two cutest ones. Then I drove home with them in a cardboard box, feeling really happy that I had actually rescued two rats that were intended to be snake food.
There’s strain of this in the devotees of ANY pet.
Try to adopt a dog these days and tell the breeder you’re going to feed the dog actual dog food. They’ll look at you like you said “I am going to set the dog on fire just to watch it die.”
Mice people can be just as bad; one local place insists that the rescue lady has the right to spring surprise visits to check on her rehomed mice. Other demands include a fan in summer (this is England, we don’t have summer), one specific brand of bedding, a visit to the house beforehand… Bet you have to hide the mousetraps while she’s there as well.
The breeder I eventually got some from was fine though, she was just a small scale hobbyist who liked mice a lot. A few questions about what they were going to be kept in and a few diet recommendations, but nothing weird. Mice are good at escaping, it’s sensible to check.
Personally I’d be a bit wary about transporting rats any kind of distance in cardboard boxes, they’re pretty good at chewing their way out, or peeing and turning a section of cardboard to mush. Our local vet requires a plastic carrier.
