Roof Rat Ready for Weaning

Question
Hi!  Our family found a 4 or 5 day old roof rat (yes, I am sure) about three weeks ago.  With the help of this site, Kiwi (her name) is doing very well.  He eyes have been open for abut 3 days and her ears are finally up.  She is dringing from a bowl, kitten formula.  I recently moved her into a standard hamster cage with a climb up "look out" and she likes it.  Question, How do I go about weaning her to solid food and get her drinking from the water bottle?  When will she be able to go to the bathroom on her own and is a rat like a hmaster and goes in a litter box?

Thanks for any info!  She is doing great thanks to this site!

Answer
Hello, You should place lots of different kinds of food in the cage and she should learn to eat it by herself. You can feed her tasty things like baby food as well as normal rat food. She will still need milk until she is eating really well as you don't want her to start loosing weight. The most important thing is that she learns to eat by her own, you will have to spend a lot of time watching her because thats the only way you will know if shes eating. Give her a water bottle in her cage, she will have to learn to use this by herself and she may or may not. You can monitor the amount of water left in the bottle to see if she is drinking from it but its best to give her a water bowl as well incase she doesn't get the hang of drinking from a bottle. If she doesn't drink she will get dehydrated which isn't goo. The main thing is that because her eyes are open, not to think that she can fend for herself. She would still have the care of her mother for about another 3 weeks and she would also have littermates and she would learn a lot from them. Obviously kiwi cant learn from her mother so she may take a bit longer to develop. You will have to watch her to see if she can go to the toilet on her own. Rats will go to the toilet all over their cage, they are very messy and don't use a litter box. They like to mark their scent all over the place. Once she is older she will need a proper rat cage as a hamster cage will be too small. Glad to hear that shes doing great and good luck.