Việt Pros and Cons of Fancy Rats as Pets

This is a video on the pros and cons of owning fancy rats as pets. Rats can make amazing pets, but only for the right people. Rats are friendly, playful, intelligent, and clean. However, they also require a great deal of time and money to live their lives to the fullest potential. It's my hope that this video will show you both the joys of rat ownership, as well as the downsides. I'll start with the pros and continue to the cons as the video moves along. Enjoy! Okay, I'll start with the pros. Now, my first pro is that rats are social animals by nature. This means that you should always have pairs or groups of rats living together. Unless you're planning on neutering or spaying your rats, you'll need to keep them in the same gender groups, so you don't end up with, well, lots of rat babies. Because they're such social animals, this bond translates to humans, and rats tend to bond very strongly with their owners. Even nervous or skittish rats, like my rat Sonic or my rat Cream, tend to bond very closely with their owners, and they will distinguish you from other people. Moving on, my second pro is that rats tend to become cuddly as they age. As a general rule, males tend to become more cuddly than females, just because males tend to become a little more lazier as they age, while females retain that energetic streak. I've never had males, however, but at least half of my adult females have become quite cuddly. As you can see in these clips, Shadow and Latte, both older girls, became very cuddly once they aged to a certain point. Happy rats tend to grind their teeth, which is something known as bruxing, and boggle, which is when their eyes pop in and out. Your rat may also groom you back, nibbling or licking your fingers in an adorable manner. My next pro is that rats tend to be relatively low-maintenance pets. While they do require their food and water to be replaced and replenished every other day, and their cage to be cleaned out every week or two, and some out-of-cage playtime, they have very little other requirements. This makes them great pets for people with time constraints, as they don't require walks, baths, or even brushing. This low maintenance also makes them great pets when trying to find a pet sitter, as they require very little effort to watch, and if you're only going to be gone for a weekend or so, you can leave some extra food and water in the cage, and your rats will be just fine. That's not to say that rats won't enjoy extra playtime, and my girls get between two and four hours, or even more sometimes, of playtime each night, and they come up for cuddles, trick training, and just to interact with me. Moving on to my next pro, it's that rats tend to be very playful creatures. Rats can be very playful, both with each other and their humans. Young rats in particular will wrestle with your hand, or play tag with you, which is a game where they run to you, get tickled, popcorn away, and then come bounding back for more. Rats enjoy chasing strings, just like kittens or cats, and many rats will get almost predatory, jumping on the string, pulling it, and even running away to stash it, if they can get it away from you. My next pro is that rats tend to be very clean creatures. Despite the stereotype that rats are in general very dirty, this simply isn't true. If you watch a fancy rat, or any rat in general, you'll see that they groom themselves several times a day, and easily as much as the average house cat. My girls are very fastidious, and as you notice in these video clips, they're quick to groom anything off their fur. Another pro is that rats tend to be very athletic pets, and they are able to jump many feet, as well as bounce on thin surfaces. As you can see in this video clip, even Shadow, a huge rat, is able to balance on something only a millimeter thick. Perhaps one of the most important pros of rats is that they can be litter trained. Now, most rats aren't going to learn to pee in the box all the time, however, you can pretty easily train a rat to poop in a litter box. To do this, just find the corner in the cage that they use the most, and place a litter box into it. As long as you continue to pick up any feces outside the box, and drop it into the box, your rats will soon learn to only use that place to defecate. As for pee, rats tend to mark anywhere and everywhere, so you can't really control where they go. However, for big puddles of urine, you can place a rock into your litter box, as this encourages rats to pee there. Now, moving on to perhaps my favorite pro, it's the fact that rats are extremely intelligent and very malleable. This means that you can easily train them complex tricks, just like you could a dog. As you see in these clips, my rats have learned tons of awesome tricks. Anything from cum, to fetching money from a purse, to agility, to doing a wall handstand, to weaving, and much more is possible, as long as you have time and patience. And my final pro for fancy rats as pets, is that their silly antics will never fail to make you smile. Rat behaviors are often both amusing and endearing, and seeing a little face poking out of the corner of the cage, begging to come out, never fails to lift my mood. Now we move on to the cons of keeping rats as pets. Now, my first con is the fact that rats will smell. No matter how clean the cage is kept, fancy rats will always have a slight animal smell to their cage. This smell is worse in intact males than in females, because males often mark more than their female counterparts. However, I've had many females now, and I can say that the more dominant or outgoing ones tend to mark just as much as males. There are some solutions to this problem, however, such as air purifiers, frequent vacuuming around the cage, nature's miracle spray, and spot cleaning of the cage. You need to be careful not to irritate the rat's delicate respiratory system with whatever you use, as this can cause your eyes or other problems, which rats are very susceptible to. Keep in mind that cleaning the cage too often will exacerbate the smell, as rats will furiously overmark to compensate for the lack of their smell in the cage. You can leave some dirty bedding in the cage after each cleaning to help reduce the need to mark more. Another con for rats is that they can be very destructive, especially when bored. Rats generally only chew when bored, so by providing an enriching environment and a sturdy non-plastic cage, you can usually prevent any damage. Just be sure to put away any cables and to only wear clothes that you don't mind getting holes in when interacting with your rats. Another con is that rats are deceivingly cheap pets. While most rats are going to be sold for under $20, a good rat cage is usually $100 or more, and when you add in vet fees, that price skyrockets. Because rats are exotic animals, they tend to cost more than even a dog or a cat when they need to see the vet, and that's not even taking into account the fact that it's really hard to find a good exotic vet out there. Considering that most rats will get sick at least once in their lifetime, it's good to have a supply of money set aside for going to the vet if necessary. And that brings me to my next con, which is that rats are susceptible to many different health issues. Rats suffer from many health problems, and the most common here are going to be benign tumors, respiratory issues, bumblefoot, abscesses, and cysts. Due to their delicate respiratory systems, the majority of rats will suffer from some sort of respiratory illness that needs vet treatment within their lifetime. And now I'll move on to the worst con of owning fancy rats as pets. By far the worst con of owning such amazing pets is their short lifespan. Many rats only live 1.5 to 2.5 years, though some may live till three or four. The oldest rat ever recorded lived till just past seven years of age, however, this is very rare. If possible, getting your rats from a knowledgeable breeder can maximize the time you have with them. But despite the cons, I still feel that having fancy rats as pets is far more rewarding than it is detrimental. To conclude, if you have the time, dedication, and funds to support them, I definitely recommend fancy rats as pets. Interactive, curious, fun, smart, and cuddly, fancy rats are often described as little dogs. I would definitely recommend rats to anyone looking for king-sized love in a pint-sized package. Thanks for watching, and I hope this video was helpful in deciding if fancy rats are the right pets for you.