excessive thirst

Question
We just adopted a young female rat into our family. I do not know her exact age except to say she is younger than one year.  Recently I have noticed that she seems to be excessively thirsty.  She is eating well but is constantly at her water bottle, day and night.  We just moved her into a new cage within the last three days but even before that she seemed overly thirsty.  Also the new cage has bars as opposed to her old home which was a plastic box.  She has always been friendly and easy to handle without biting.  Since moving to her new cage, she has bit twice through the bars.  Is this possibly due to new environment?  Any help would be appreciated.  
Thanks. Theresa

Answer
Hi Theresa

Few things first: What does her daily diet consist of. Try to include what she eats the best you can, from her daily diet to the snacks she eats.

I need to know about her urine habits. While she is drinking more, is she also urinating normally or even a bit more than normal?  

The cause is sometimes diet that is high in fats and proteins which is why I seem obsessed with diet and stressing low proteins and fats and avoiding those terrible seed diets sold for rats and mice that pet stores have the gonads to sell!

Do you notice any other strange signs such as weight loss? Is she a smaller rat?  Do you notice any changes in her fur? Is it thinning out?


As for her biting through the bars, this is not unusual for rats to bite through the cage bars. If you have hand fed her through in the cage and now hand her treats through the bars she may associate that with treats and since rats are nearly blind, they may easily mistake a finger for a treat esp since they cannot see well at  all.