Taming and marking(not territory marking)

Question
QUESTION: Hello, I just got my two adorable pet rats a week ago from a local petco. They are both female. So far, they are not very tame at all. I would like to know what the best way is to tame my two rats. Also, they are both PEWS(Pink Eyed Whites. Which I'm sure you know, just clarifying). Is there a way to safely and permanently mark one of them so I can tell them apart?

ANSWER: Hi Jon


I have had a cage full of PEWS, BEWS (black eyed whites for those that dont know) and black selfs (all black rats) and it was hard to know who was who until you knew their own distinct personality. By that time, this will wear off and you can apply it again or you may know who is who by shapve and size set...
You can use either non toxic permanent markers in various colors and put a nice dot on the rats tail, usually by the base of the tail by their fur.  You can also use food coloring. It is non toxic as well. Just a tiny dab on  q-tip and put the dot on the base of the tail as well.
Use a different color for each rat but be sure to NOT make the same mistake I did and forget what color was for who! LOL
I had red for Skittles, Green for Magoo, Orange for Clayton and blue for Twizzler but that was after I forgot who was who, so I am sure they were renamed several times before I was smart enough to write it down and remember.  I have three black berks now and luckily can tell who is who.
Templeton is the big 800 gram rat that screams about everything: Bo is the dumbo and Santana only has one eye (the other had to be removed due to infection last year) so no coloring on the tails for these guys.

As for the rats being shy: Taking things slow, using slow movements, not forcing her to be picked up, never corner her to pick them up, talk in a low soft voice with no sudden moves or sounds for the first few weeks while these rats are really taking everything in that is new to them. Remember rats are born not to trust anyone outside their own species so if they were not properly socialized by the breeder which I doubt, that means they dont trust you..yet. They will though, with a bit of patience. Normally, rats are to be held and stroked and talked to from birth and this makes the most friendly rat you can ever imagine, but when they are just bred by breeders who only pump out rats for feeders etc...they are not bred for health and the breeder could care less if they are shy or not, either, which is sad because many people want friendly rats so the shy ones get left behind. If I ever buy pet store rats I always have gone for the underdog. They shy one in the corner, the one with all the battle scars that you can tell gets bullied the most...those are the rats I bring home and after some love and trust training, they end up being the most grateful of all rats.

I have devoted my website to people that have rats as pets and update it all the time.  After I started answering questions here, I have found that there are a handful of things that people want to know about most, from tumors and respiratory infection to shy and biting rats, I have made hundreds of posts about the same thing again and again so I finally made it easier and put all of the info on various pages on my website. Please go to the URL and check out my site .

Here is the URL to the page about how to train your shy or biting rat.


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


Please check it out and let me know if you still have any questions.
It will tell you all you need to know on how to approach your shy rat and before you know it, they will be cuddling with you!




---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hello again. I liked the advice on taming that your website gives but I have just one small problem. I use a glass 10 gallon aquarium with a cage topper. The only place where it opens is the whole top is hinged and opens. How do I adapt your method with my setup? ALso, before asking you questions, I picked my rats up a couple times each. Did I ruin my chances of taming them?

Thanks again, Jon

ANSWER: Hmmm.....



.......thinking...........

LOL...........

Ok, if you get a shoebox, cut a hole for a door and let them go inside it. Once in, lift the shoebox up and take it out of the cage. Keep the shoebox in the play area so they have a place to run for safety and security that they are used to and this way there is no struggle between you and the rat trying to lift her out and having her resent you or fear your hand from then on.

Or....if you can flip the lid and see if they climb up and somehow make some kind of ramp for them to use? I have a ferret nation and its high off the ground so I just put a box in front of the cage and open the door and they use the box as a step, and there is another box next to it a little lower so its like two big steps they use to get in and out of the cage.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: THank you so much for your help.

PS: Are there any pictures of those self-blacks you mentioned on your website? I love self blacks

Answer
http://www.freewebs.com/crittercity/rathealthinformation.htm


That is the page where my boy is on. Santana is one of my boys, he is featured as an example of a rat with an eye infection and I have it of him with the infected eye, and after that was his eye removed and he recovered great. He is  all black.