baby female rat

Question
I just got a baby dumbo rat supposed to be around 3 months old from PetCo. She seemed fine at the store since getting her home she rarely comes out of her house. She seems to be active at night when all the lights are off like a normal rat and she's eating and drinking but I can not get her to come to me. She's bitten me 2x. I never had a rat do this before. I'm not sure what to do with her. I've only had her for 3.5 days and she's still constantly hiding in her little house. I have been talking to her and sitting by her cage but she just stays in there hiding.

Answer

Hi Heather

How sweet baby dumbos are.  The poor thing is anti social, which does not shock me a bit coming from pet store breeders.  These breeders breed dozens of rats and have zero time to socialize them. If they do not come from super friendly parents, chances are you have a shy little rat to deal with. Shy means scared, scared means bite.

The best thing is to not try to pick her up at all and allow her time to adjust.  Three and half days is not long at all for a shy rat to start to trust her new owner. She has no clue what your intentions are and needs time to figure it out.

Start off by bribery. Always works. LOL  aby food on a spoon, let her lick the spoon but do NOT try to touch her while she is eating it. She will dart away and hide again.  Do this a few times a day for a few days and next, move the baby food to your fingers. You can try this sooner as you think she is coming out of her shell more. Next, you should have an area for her to play in that is rat safe. Not a table or bed, but somewhere on the floor that is set up so she can come out of the cage on her own and you are sitting on the floor waiting for her. You can construct a cool looking cardboard "wall" and make it as large as you want. tall is best, using a large box.  There is an example on my website on the GETTING STARTED page that tells you how to set up a safe play area.  


http://www.freewebs.com/crittercity/gettingstarted.htm

Coax her out of the cage but do not bring her out, let her come on her own and make sure she can get back into the cage again or has places to hide while out. Never take these from her and force her to be exposed.  Some bad rat advice I have found on other sites say to remove all of their hiding spots and force them to socialize. this is cruel to do and can even send the rat into such a panic and scare them so much they can go into shock really fast.

Check out my website for more info on training a shy or biting rat on the URL here:

http://www.freewebs.com/crittercity/trainingshyorbitingrats.htm