Chapter 1 - Pet Shops and Breeders - The Ethics, Pros and Cons

The war has always been there between pet shops and breeders. The ethics of how pets are treated when at pet shops compared to the care taken of the rats which breeders breed especially for private sale. Unfortunately there are a few privately and some not so privately owned pet shops who don't give animals the care they need and therefore tarnish the work of the other pet shops who do do a good job.

The cruel reality of where pet shops rats have come from is pretty distressing and is something to take into account before you consider buying from a pet shop all together. Many rats in pet shops come from what are commonly known as rat farms, alongside every other small rodent that may be at the pet shop. Rat farms are purely open for profit, they do not think about the health and wellbeing of the animals in question anymore than they need to. Rat farms are rows and rows of small box cages with normally a mesh tops, they are normally quite cramped and dark, with little to no toys for the rats to play with. They normally sit the animals on un-suitable bedding such as wood shavings which can cause problems later on in life such as respiratory infections.
Female rats at the rat farms are normally constantly pregnant to keep up with demand by pet shops for the animals. The implications on the female rats body for being constantly pregnant are huge. If not fed on the correct diet, the rat will produce poor litters of kittens (baby rats) and poor milk to feed them on. Females and males are normally in together which means constant mating. The female could technically at one time be nursing a batch of 2/3 week old kittens and already be pregnant with her next lot. Kittens dead or alive are sold for different purposes, the reptile industry is also at an all time high, so any dead kittens are normally frozen for bate, nothing is wasted. Live healthy ish kittens are obviously sent to the pet shops on the farms suppliers list for public sale.
Rats at the farms aren't fed generally very well either, normally on some cheap wholesale generic rat food which is full of artificial ingredients and isn't well balanced. The food does not take into consideration what rats need from young to old and therefore the rats in the care of the rat farmers can only be in a considerably poor health affair.
The sad thing about these rat farms are that most rats are handled badly, if they are handled at all, they have no life really to speak of, the only rats which come out lucky from this arrangement are the ones who find good homes with rat owners who take them off their bad diets and saw dust bedding. But to buy from these pet shops who use rat farms is making the demand for pet shops rats higher. What can we do to be right?
The saddest case i came across when going into a local privately owned pet shop was a cage full of male rats, mostly about 4/5 weeks ish old, with one larger mis marked hooded Berkshire in there. The lady behind the counter remarked on my knowledge of rats and asked if i had any as the hoodie needed a home. He was apparently at 14 weeks becoming too old to sell and if i wasn't to take him off her hands, would become live snake bate. I was utterly appalled! Naturally i brought him home and introduced him to my pack, but vowed never again to buy any livestock from a pet shop.
Rats which are sent to pet shops normally are too young to be there too. I've personally seen pet shops selling baby rats from the age of 4 weeks which is far too young. To have been weened and taken away from their mother at so young is not good for their development. Rats should stay with their mum until at least 6 to 9 weeks old when they have become a lot more socially aware of their environment and developed a bit further. Rats which have been separated from their mum at such a young age are normally nervous and scared and take a long time to become sociable with their new owners. They are also under nourished due to being weened off milk so early and normally do not develop correctly.
A prime example of that was a pair of rats my step-son was bought from a large pet chain, 2 mi marked hooded Berkshires. Both related as far as we were told from the pet shop that is, and both the same age. They were 8 weeks when they were bought and both were very small and were sneezing. Over the Christmas period they both seemed to be doing well, then all of a sudden the smaller one of the two seemed to start loosing his fur through a serious bout of mites. We managed to get that under control with imervectin and skin cream and all was well again. Until a few weeks later when one rat seemed to have grown twice the size of the other one. We started to get really worried about him and took him to the vets. The vet said due to the way in which rat farms look after their animals, through lack of food with decent nutrient for the mother to produce good milk etc, that the rat we had bought had a series of genetic problems affecting growth etc. 2 weeks later even with various vitamins, antibiotic and food supliments, he died.

I guess what i am trying to instill onto people is that everyone will buy a pet shop rat at some point in their time of rat ownership, i am no different, i have bought a total of 4 rats from different pet shops in my local area, but i feel that if people do not realize how these rats are treated, things will never change. My advise to any rat owner is to find a local breeder who breeds for showing and looks after both parent and baby rats with the care they need. Not only will you find that breeders rats are happier rats, but also live for longer in some cases and are also a lot better and more healthy. Also you will know that by buying these rats, you are not promoting the breeding of rats on rat farms. I will try to add to the blog at some point in the future a list of breeders from all around the UK of which i am satisfied look after their rats properly and don't sell to rat farms.

So pet shops don't look so good now do they? The care of the animals which arrive at pet shops is also very varied. Some pet shops allow large tanks with suitable bedding for the rats to live in and set a generally high standard of care for the new batch of farmed rats they have had in. Unfortunately though, thats only the case in very few of the pet shops i have ever been into. Most are in small hamster tanks on saw dust or wood chipping which do them no good, on some horrible pet food which in some cases isn't even specially made for rats consumption.
Worst case scenarios i have heard of is things like rats not being sexed properly, people buying what they thought was a male companion for their current male rat only to find they have bought a pregnant female. Pet shops always say they cannot guarantee the sex of the pet you are buying, which is a bit distressing when there is always the possibility that you may have bought a female rat which had been living in a tank with a load of males.
Rats are pretty easy to sex, males from about 10 days pretty large testicles which hand under the base of their tails. Females have nipples and their reproductive hole and anus are a lot closer together. However if a male rat is stressed they can retract their testicles and it can make it difficult to sex them.
Pet shops will always tell you their breeders are respectable and treat their animals with the care they deserve, however this is just spiel they use to lull you into the sense that they are about the animals. Any respectable breeder would not sell to pet shops, small breeders who have time to look after the mother and kittens would not be able to keep up with the demand for rats which the pet shop would have and therefore would sell any babies privately, at the right age and when they had been used to getting handled etc.

Prologue - Tips for First Time Rat Owners

When looking for information online to help and aid in the care of my favourite furry friends, the rodents which most people would rather run from than kiss and cuddle, the rat. I find it stupendously difficult and time consuming answering queries and questions i may in some circumstances need an answer to quickly that i decided to write it all down as a resource which will all be in one place.

This document will encompass every aspect of rodent care and ailments, also feeding techniques, cage choosing, care and a rough guideline to every possible illness and cure to the illness i can get my hands on. Alongside information about medication used for poorly rats etc. All the nagging, niggly bits that we all trail through message boards for answers for will be covered and updated when they need to be to keep this publication up to date.

The most obvious place to start is right at the beginning, everyone is a new rat owner once and therefore it seems the most obvious thing to do would be first to give some background on the responsibilities of being a pet owner and how to look after rats on a basic level. Like all rodents, rats are mammals, warm blooded and breed like there is no tomorrow if you are not careful! When choosing a rat you need to be certain of it's sex. Rats are highly sociable animals and survive better in most circumstances in pairs or larger packs. Always make sure when buying rats that you have same sex rats as otherwise you will end up with hundreds of them! unless of course you are planning on breeding rats yourself, in that case ignore me completely.

When choosing rats from pet shops, be sure to ask the age of the rats, their general health since they have arrived in the shop and also make sure it looks healthy. The main ways in looking at a rat and knowing it is healthy is looking at it's coat, if its shiny and well kept, the rat's eyes are bright, its free from scratches and scrapes, the animal is active etc. Another way of checking is by it's size, ask if all the rat's are the same age, if the rat is the same size as its cage buddies in the shop it is likely to be growing properly. Another thing to check for is that the rat isn't sneezing or wheezing as that can suggest respiratory problems. All of these quick checks may seem stupid, but it prevents the stress of loosing a new pet which you have just bonded with a few months previous, or vets bills for a new animal which technically should be healthy and care free.

Bringing a species of animal home of which you haven't had responsibility for before can be a very daunting prospect. I remember bringing home my first rat, a buck called Mortiis. He was a perfectly marked Husky or Rowan (depending on where you live, husky being the American term for the breed, and Rowan the English term) with piercing blue eyes. Previously i had been used to handling rodents a lot smaller, such as gerbils and hamsters, Mortiis was already at 12 weeks, larger than both, with a huge scaly tail.
Bonding with your new friend straight away is paramount. Not only are rats pack orientated creatures and highly sociable within their own species, they also crave and adore human attention. They easily in most circumstances become sociable and used to their owners very quickly. The easiest techniques to use when bonding with your rat is to leave them alone for the first hour to get used to the new smells of the cage. Allow them to acclimatize to their new surroundings, leave the cage somewhere shaded but warm and close to where everyday noise can be heard. Never leave them in front of loud stereo or TV equipment as if it is constantly on it will really stress the animal out.

After they seem settled, try placing your hand into the cage so that the rat can sniff and walk over it. This will get the animal used to your smell. Animals will react to this approach differently, as like any creature, we all have different dispositions. Some may shake and jump, maybe even squeak. If this is the response, do not be afraid and move your hand away. That would be positively reinforcing in the rats mind that if it squeaks or jumps, the human will leave it alone.
Some animals way scuttle over as confident as anything and want to come straight out for an explore with you. When this happens, you know you have been very lucky and have an extremely easy job on your hands!
Some rats at first out of fright may nip your skin with their teeth. In my experience they have never nipped me hard and it has been more of a test to firstly see what you taste like and secondly to make sure you are not food. Obviously if the rat bites and draws blood you have a completely different scenario on your hands as that is vicious behaviour.

Lastly when it comes to a first time rat owner, the more literature you read, the more knowledge you seek, the better owner you become. The more you handle your rats, the more joy they will give you. In the latter chapters i will go into great detail on each individual subject as it arises and add more information i have come across. This prologue is aimed at giving new owners a few tips before going into all of the subjects in depth and overwhelming people!