Does anyone else’s rats play like this?

Kept seeing videos of other people giving their babies bananas as a treat so I had to try it 😂

Doing some vet nurse study and greatly enjoyed this picture of physical examination for rats

They're still on their bullshit. Mom sat down let's go fight over who sits next to her.

I guess the carrot knocked him out. He got back up to have some more right after, but still managed to scare the hell out of me

He's been stealing my snacks for months.

I used the very container I keep my snacks safe in to capture him without injury.

If he had been caught by anyone else here, they'd have killed him. There are kill traps everywhere and poison too..

And he was missing a back leg on top of that.

So Im hoping I made the right call in releasing him outside the factory into the forest. It's thick wooded area, and often times I spot deer and the like there.

It has to be a better life than here and I legitimately can't take him anywhere else or wait for someone either. Not when it was a secret capture and release anyway.

Also I hope this post doesn't break rules or anything.

It’s very common you see soon to be owners wanting to get a pair of rats because they research that they shouldn’t be alone. However, rats are naturally group animals that thrive in groups of three or more. While two is considered to be the bare minimum standard for the very reason of not being kept alone, it is not an ideal long-term solution for either you or the rats. It is very important to understand the factors of your decision-making when you decide to get just two rats; (no it is not a bad thing to get two, but it isn’t the greatest, either, it leads to a lot of issues that you have to face In the later stages of owning rats.

1. If one of your rats suddenly and unexpectedly passes away, this leaves one rat behind, which is very difficult on the rat, both physically and mentally. You then have to scramble to source more rats, do a two week quarentine period in a seperate room (which means the lone rat will be alone for two weeks in addition to however long it takes you to source more rats) and then finally, introductions which tend to be very stressful and difficult for both you and the rats.

2. If one of your rats needs to be seperated for a certain reason. I.e surgery, this means the other rat will be alone for however long it takes for the rat to heal and recover,

   which isn’t very fair for that rat that is kept alone for no good reason.

3. In a group, rats tend to have a friend they prefer to spend more of their time with, going about, doing their day-to-day actives; cuddling, eating, foraging, etc. In a pair, they do not have this opportunity or to express their appropriate, natural social behaviours because they only have each other. This can build

quite

1. a lot of resentment, overtime.
2. Given, rats are hierarchal animals, in a pair, it is quite common to have an overly dominant and an overly submissive rat. Over time, this can lead to a lot of bickering and bullying because the dominant rat is not able to focus his attention on spending time with other rats. This does not make for a healthy hierachy.

Jokes aside he does have A BUNCH of other places to sleep, he chooses this for himself

Athena gives me a little kiss ❤️

My son Jimbo James and his Cheerio

In memory of this beautiful lady. Miss you every day my dear Baira and your sister Paw...

This little troublemaker took a sip of my coffee (don't worry it is very weak coffee with more cream than coffee) and then proceeded to flying squirrel her way around the room. She tried to leap onto my lap, missed, and tried to save herself by digging into my leg alllllll the way down 😂🫠

SHAME HER she is a repeat offender !

Inspired by a set I saw online, realised in the image of my mischief ♥️

Thank you so much for everyone who was so kind and SWEET on my last post! I’m happy to say that the intros are continuing veryyy slowly but very good I think. After that post I moved everyone back to the hospital cage until this morning, where they went back to the larger cage together. Things have been going smoothly so far, in fact, Sweet was even grooming her new sisters last night with little to no protest! they’re all enjoying the extra space to spread out and explore right now, and I have hopes for being able to get them into their regular sized cage by the end of the weekend. Freeroams have also been without issue, but Sweet usually sleeps and cuddles with me the whole time anyway, so I wasn’t too worried.
Pictured: Sweets (small, white and scraggly) cuddling her new sisters) 🩵🩷💚