Rats and Rabbits

Question
Hello. My roommate just got a rabbit as a pet and she was told that all rats have mites, and that if the rats are around the rabbit that it can be deadly to the rabbit. Is this true? I have never heard of anything like this before.

Answer
Hi Anne

I am not sure what this person means about the rat being deadly to the rabbit. If this person means simply being in the same room with a rat it may pass some horrible disease to the bunny etc...and if that is what is being said, that is absolutely totally 100 percent NOT TRUE!  I have a rabbit too. His name is Dillworth. His cage sits about 10 feet diagonally from two of my rats and his cage used to sit approximately 3 feet from my female WILD rat (who has now passed) but Bunnys cage is up higher atop a TV stand.
However, if the person meant that the two animals should not play together because the outcome may be deadly, perhaps suggesting that the rat will attack and kill the bunny, this could very well be turned around and it can be suggested that the bunny could harm the rat instead. Poor ratties get such a bad rap all the time!!

There are FEW diseases that rats and rabbits share with each other and this also doesn't mean the rat is at fault. The bunny may be the culprit  as well, but once again, rabbits and rats do not pass things on to each other since most of their ailments are either species specific or host specific. Rabbits are not rodents and do not suffer from the same type of viral infections like rodents do.

Lets start with mites. The mites rats have are species specific or host specific. They only stick to their own species OR host.
All rats are not carriers of mites. People are relating mites to the way people have mites themselves that they shed off when they shed off their skin. You know, those nasty bugs that they magnify a gazillion times to try to make you buy an expensive mattress in order to prevent these  bugs?  LOL  Well same thing applies to most animals. The way this works is that under normal conditions mites do not tend to be bothersome to their host. It is when the rat is stressed, has a decreased immunity because they are sick or they are elderly and he or she is unable to keep them away because they cannot properly groom themselves in order to keep mites away, and in turn this causes the mites to flourish in numbers.

Anyhow, to answer you without all the above mumbo jumbo:
No rats don't walk around with active case of mites crawling all over that will jump to another animal and set up house there and rats also will not give bunnies any of the ailments they catch since again, most of the ailments are species specific or host specific.
Finally, if raised together as babies, rats have been known to get along with the family dog and cat but never put a rat with a mouse because they are natural enemies since rats hunt and kill mice in the wild and ferrets hunt and kill rats in the wild. I never let my rats play with any other species just to be safe but if there is anyone in danger, an adult rabbit would probably be more likely to pose a danger to the rat because it can physically harm the rat faster than the rat can hurt the bunny!