Yes, I “read the thread”, including the post above mine, which I was responding to and which seemed to indicate that the store was selling cats. Maybe it was obvious to you that they were talking about “adoption days”, but it wasn’t obvious to me, and no amount of reading this thread would make it so.
Some pet stores obviously do sell cats and dogs - I have seen 'em. So my point stands.
Care to answer it, or would you rather just lambast me for ignorance?
Yes, the local Petcetera only handles animals from the SPCA, so my cat was an SPCA animal. Maybe I didn’t make that very clear.
As for informing the local SPCA, I’m not sure it will do any good. Unfortunately, our local shelter is very understaffed, and often their own shelter is in as bad a condition as the Petcetera. I will mention it to them, though.
I noticed that you already got a response to this, but I will add in case it helps.
The compressed cakes you are talking about are called lab blocks; you can find them in most petstores, but the rather expensive, high-end brand is called Harlan Teklad and it’s what most breeders and owners that can afford it will buy. I personally feed my rats a mix of low-protein dog food (look for the senior kind), mixed with grains, seeds, dried fruits/vegetables, etc… sometimes people will add uncooked noodles or cereal flakes, etc. Like a rattie trail-mix. 
I find that it’s much cheaper than lab blocks and soooo much more tastier looking. Some rats won’t even eat lab blocks and will only stash them away or lie around on them. Lab blocks are okay to feed them of course, but I wouldn’t think they’d be preferable to a home-made mix (many of which you can find online). I also feed mine fresh fruits and veggies every couple of days, just as a treat and something better to eat. Rats can pretty much eat anything humans eat (give or take a few plants), I’m not sure about the meat-changing-temperament thing though, but I don’t feed mine meat in the first place, it just doesn’t seem very necessary to their diet.
Anyhow, if you feed them lab-blocks, you can find dispensers all over the internet especially made for rats cages, or you could secure something like a cat-food dispenser to the inside so it doesn’t tip over. The dispenser is good for home-made mixes because the container tends to be solid plastic, wereas lab-block holders are made of wire grid. 16 oz or larger sized water bottles, most of the time, will hold over two or three ratties for several days… I thought they would drink a lot when I got mine, but none of them seem to really drain it.
About leaving them alone for a few days – this is fine, just make sure you don’t go anywhere for at least a couple weeks when you get them so you make sure of their habits and such and that they can’t escape. It wouldn’t be good to have them for a day or two and come back and realize they eat a lot more than you thought and so their dish is empty, or that you didn’t know they could open the latch and you find half your room chewed to hell, or even worse dead ratties if you have other animals. Especially as a first-time owner it is good to get used to your rattie and let them get used to you before disappearing for a few days, it could be a traumatic event.
Other than that, give them lots of time out to explore (if you have a room that’s hard to rat-proof (meaning taping down cords, removing anything that could injure them, blocking off places you don’t want them to be, etc.), confine them to a chair or sofa covered with a blanket (so they can’t get in the cushions), and they will be happy as long as they get an hour or so).
Someone said that getting a solitary rat is okay, which I don’t agree with. I would never advocate buying a solitary rat, even if you never take vacations, because they are social creatures just like us. How would you feel being cooped up in your house all your life with nothing to do except what was provided you and nothing to be able to change? That’s how ratties are too… they need buddies to hang out with and they need free time to stretch their legs. I would always recommend a same-sex pair (neutering or spaying takes anethesia, which runs the risk of slipping away for rats or dogs or humans, so always avoid it if possible) or more if you want. One rat requires much too much attention for anyone, even someone who has no job and doesn’t go to school and is home all the time… rats can get depressed and lonely just like us, and that’s no fun.
If you are really wanting to buy a rat, I recommend purchasing from a breeder in your area – you can join the Yahoo! Group the “ratlist” (refer to another post I made, there’s a description of what it is there) or just Google rat breeders and your location and you will come up with something, probably. If you can’t find a breeder, try to go to a local, family-owned petstore and try and make sure the people are experienced. Even at local stores, rats are sold as snake feeders and don’t have the proper socialization or heath and will be hard to handle or sick… but you will probably have a better chance at a local store than a chain.
For a cage, I recommend Martin’s – you can go to www.martinscages.com. I find they are cheaper than anything you can find at a pet-store, if you can even find stuff there. None of my petstores carry any cages for mammals smaller than a ferret, and it’s even hard to buy supplies for my rats. Martin’s is inexpensive, family-run, high-quality and used by most owners. Mine got shipped to me in a couple days, it took less than an hour to assemble, and takes about 5 minutes to clean. I’m very satsified with it. You can also build a cage, it’s easy to find directions online for modifying a bookshelf or building from scratch using hardware cloth.
The cage should have a cloth hammock (you can buy one or just safety pin up an old shirt), a water-bottle and food dispenser (no dishes, they can tip and get messy), a wheel if you buy girls (none of my boys run on wheels, I think they’re naturally lazier), and some kind of bedding – I use old fabric, but there is obviously wood chips or shreds (no pine or cedar of course), paper products (Carefresh is the best, but expensive), and corn-cob (which is good, but sometimes promotes ringworm because it’s very dry). They also need something to gnaw on (especially girls). I give them those ropes used for parrot cages that have wood blocks between the knots, or Dentabones. You could also just use cardboard or something but they’ll shred it to bits and throw it around and it gets soggy and gross and doesn’t last as long.
Hope this helps.
Oh right, I forgot. Lots of people travel with their rats, it’s just like travelling with any pet – you use a carrier, not the whole doghouse, right? There are very small carriers made for rats, they’re just mini-cages, that sometimes are even smaller than small cat carriers (but those are only for one rat). My travel cases are actually just medium-sized modified Rubbermaid tubs – I cut out the top and use cable-ties to secure hardware cloth (wire meshing) to the top for ventilation… it’s not as easy though to attach water bottles to those, and you’d have to modify it to give the rats another level, which manufactured travel cages usually have.
There’s actually a Martin’s cage that comes with a detachable top level that converts to a travel cage, really cool! 
Lots of people have shoulder-trained their rats (rats are very, very trainable, extremely smart), and don’t even use a carrier if they don’t need to. People also use little pouches to take their rats on errands and stuff or out to the park, etc. like drawstring purses, which I find that rats love. But anyway, I’m getting into short-term travelling here… you get the point.
You can travel with rats if you’d like to, it’s like traveling with any other pet, but almost easier because you can just leave their food and water attached to the travel cage, and you never have to take them out to pee or poo… it’s even easier to sneak them into hotels that don’t allow pets, but it’s not like I do that illegal stuff. :rolleyes:
Some of the various kitty litter stuff is fine also. “Littergreen” ( which I haven’t seen in a whike) was great for the bottom of the cage.
Dr. Deth and Aanysmaushe, thanks for all the wonderful information!
I’ve been googling and looking at a lot of pet rat (btw: why rattie?) sites, and I’m definitely going to get a pair. But not until August, because we will have several trips planned before then.
In the meantime, I will get their new home created. I showed my hubby some of the neat home made ones, and he’s actually excited about building one for me. Probably based of the one that was build out of those closet system hanging racks…
Well, I know hubby, and he always goes overboard. I predict these rats will have the Trump Tower of homes to move into. 
“Rattie” = cute pet. 
“Rat”= sewer rat. 
I was saddened when I read this post. Caring for animals is a huge responsibility that should be taken very seriously by pet stores. After seeing it, I wanted to make sure that no one ever confused Petcetera New Orleans, a small mom & pop boutique, in the United States with the BC Petcetera the poster wrote about.
As a generalization, any time you treat a life as a commercial commodity, the ironclad laws of commerce apply – holding costs down means little or no vet care, moving your stock means selling sick animals, wastage and unsold inventory goes into the freezer in the back room, often while still alive. Pet stores which do NOT do this eventually get outcompeted by large chains which do – ruthless Darwinian market forces drive them to treat the lives of their animals as callously as possible.
The root problem is the idea that lives can be sold.
If there’s one thing you can depend on to reproduce, it’s a rat. Just like your nine baby rats, the world is full of fancy rats needing adoption. The Internet has made it vastly easier to get information about pets available for adoption. Next time, please rescue and rehome.
Did this zombie thread outlive the rats it was about?
There was a good chance nobody had even read this post since 2004, when it was intially written, so by calling attention to it, you might end up causing the very damage you sought to avoid.
Anyway, spending $157 to cure a rat? Do you know how many rats you can get for $157?
However, none of those 157 rats will be YOUR rat, which does matter to some people.
–Z, whose now-deceased momma rat was a two-time cancer surgery survivor.
mmmmmm Rat Zombies.
No doubt, rats only live a few years max.
Having averted that catastrophe, I think I can safely close this six year old thread.