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Pictures Welp, we now have our first non bird

CallieCadmoor

Jogging around the block
Avenue Veteran
Celebirdy of the Month
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872
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South Africa
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Georgia
What an incredible beginning to such an amazing little life! :loveshower: I love Pluto and his story. Thank you so much @CallieCadmoor for posting this. :heart2: I look forward to hearing more about him as he grows. And any pictures are fine by us, even if they're energetic blurs. :D
Noted hehe! Will be posting his cage setup too. We've gone bioactive for him and also going more naturalistic for Loki Poki.

Has your brother gotten especially good at video games recently? I feel like he may have an edge over the other players, sort of a modern day Ratatouille. View attachment 379096
Boyfriend hehe. Common error. My boyfriend, brother and brother in law are all Josh. All gamers too. You did give us a laugh though :loltears: we love that movie. And this lil guy is a food fundie
 

CallieCadmoor

Jogging around the block
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South Africa
Real Name
Georgia
He's adorable! And such a little fighter too - I can see how he's completely charmed you.

I'm aware of someone in the UK who raises abandoned wild litters and she finds that the wildies are often much more agile than pet rats. You can have lots of fun creating interesting layouts for him - mine liked pipes and hammocks in particular. Rats also love foraging: hide some food in a toilet roll with the ends folded in, in cupcake cases and similar. I scatter-fed mine, which means that I didn't use a bowl and instead just chucked food in the substrate and they had to nose around for it. They had to work to find their food and they'd get incredibly excited about finding a pumpkin seed.

Rats are really socialable and I think he'd like a couple of friends. A trio is good because it gives them more friends to play with, and in my experience, rats tend not to pair up and will instead fall asleep in a big snuggly heap. Make sure they're all the same gender otherwise you will end up with a LOT of rats!
Thank you! Appreciate all of this.

100%, we have gone the bioactive route for him with ropes and cargo netting, branches and bridges, dig box and foraging toys. Will post a pic when it's all finished. Also decided on a cage that fits) can fit my boyfriend and myself in haha, just to give him more space due to his activeness.

Also only doing scattering feeding. Want to make his environment as wild as possible. We're also doing natural foods. So seeds, flowers, mealworms, etc just to stimulate him more. He will only have his bowls for his pawsicles treats once a weeks and to pea and berry fish.

Now. Our dilemma. I've approached several rescues and all of them have said that wildies and fancies can't be kept together. It's heartbreaking because we'd love to have friends for him. So I've put my name down with them if they have any solo, wild baby rats that come in that we can rear and hopefully they remain tame to join our boy. He is being neutered in July just in case we have anyone come in but happen to be girls (do not want to add to the rat population, people are too awful to them) and to prevent any wildie terroritorial nature.
 

Zonlover

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Virginia, USA
Real Name
Rebecca
Just a week off of 2 months. And he'll be around 2 months only now. We estimate that he was born 14 Feb :heart2:
He's just a couple weeks older than my domestic boys!
 

tka

Rollerblading along the road
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Sounds like a dream home for him!

This is some info on scatter feeding that I found useful: Scatter feeding for rats - The Scuttling Gourmet

I made my own rat mix based on these principles: Kidney friendly rat food - The Scuttling Gourmet

I included some low sugar fortified breakfast cereal for their vitamin and mineral content. If you're feeding only seeds, grains, vegetables and mealworms/dried shrimp or crickets, then it's a good idea to use a good supplement to ensure that all the nutritional bases are covered. I do think they benefit from an interesting, varied diet. Rats are neophobic and wary of trying new food because they can't vomit but once they're used to the kind of foods they get in a mix, they really seem to enjoy finding different goodies.
 
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