male rat bashing female

[Koula]

Yeah, watch out for them pet shops, they usually don't give a rat's A about the wellbeing of their stock and most times theyve got respiratory infections or worms.

If you're after a serious pet rat, there may be a rattery or private breeder nearby. Check http://www.dapper.com.au/links.htm#ausbreeders

 

[clippy]

australiao9 we told her the truth better for her to deal with it tried that once with a bird said it flew away only to have her little brother tell her it was in the bin .
once again Koula thankyou for all your help and links . Have since brought a new female that we will be keeping seperate from the male for a few weeks .Went in one pet shop and walked out the condition of the rats were disgusting and stunk to high heaven looked like they only had males and wasn't game to ask if they had any females .One male had a bald spot on its head while another was gasping for air .

 

[Koula]

australiao9 we told her the truth better for her to deal with it tried that once with a bird said it flew away only to have her little brother tell her it was in the bin .
once again Koula thankyou for all your help and links . Have since brought a new female that we will be keeping seperate from the male for a few weeks .Went in one pet shop and walked out the condition of the rats were disgusting and stunk to high heaven looked like they only had males and wasn't game to ask if they had any females .One male had a bald spot on its head while another was gasping for air .

Aye, best to get the young ones used to the concepts of life and death early. It'd be nice to live in a sheltered, sugar-coated world, but learning about death early is better than growing up in fairyland.

But yes, those examples of the rats you saw in that pet store is sadly commonplace in the pet trade. You'd have say 80% of people buying the rats for snake food and the other 20% buying for companionship. Some pet stores can be good though - they'll have healthy rats on display and keep the "mongrel" feeder rats out the back. Bald spots can either mean mites or just over-grooming/barbering. The poor little bugger that was gasping for air sounds like mycoplasmosis pulmonis, a dreadful fate for any rat where the insides of their lungs fill with fungus and fluid and they literally drown. I have seen rats go -mad- from it, desperately trying to climb upwards to the point where they jam their heads through the cage bars to escape the rising water in their lungs. The sad thing is, is it's us humans that usually infect the rats with it. (we're immune to it, but we still carry it on us)