Handling

Question
My daughter got 2 female fancy rats that are 2 months old from the pet store (we could not find ANYONE that breeds them to get them from) two days ago. She wants to hold them and let them get used to her but they want to nibble at her and try to scurry away when she picks them up out of their cage. Do you have any advise? I want to see her bond with these pets in the worst way.

Answer
It will happen, but it takes time. Pet store rats are usually not socialized properly and should have been handled from birth.

I have a web page on my website dedicated to trust training shy rats and many people that take my advice say it works so please check it out.


Also, just to let you know, never reach in for the rats, let them come to you.  They need to learn to trust you and right now they have alot to get used to.   you need a very safe play area for them that they cant escape from, and on my site there is a page called GETTING STARTED that explains how to build a nice play area out of cardboard that you can spread all the  way around the cage. You can make it 3 or 4 feet tall...the taller the better...and they can come out of the cage when it is set up and interact with you. I suggest you take part in their socialization as well so they learn to trust you too.  My rats know only ME so they are all a bit leary of new people but they are social enough to know that they wont be hurt by people, they just prefer me to others.

Here are the links.  I trained a shy biting wild baby rat this way and she was the best rat ever after that and lived to be almost 4 years old, breaking my heart when she passed in the summer of 07.

training shy rats:

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

Getting started:

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