Care and maintenance of a decorative rat at home
Unfortunately, the word “rat” is often associated with something negative. In fact, it is a very smart animal that can become a wonderful pet. Care and maintenance of a domestic rat will not cause much trouble, but the pleasure of communicating with this animal is difficult to describe in a few words.
A rat needs a large cage. The minimum size is 60 × 60 × 60 cm. It should have several tiers. The cage tray should be deep enough filled with loose bedding. It is a big mistake to put your rat in a bottle or small glass aquarium.
The rat at home lends itself well to training.
Here are some basic tips for keeping a rat.
- Build as much fun for the rat as you can in the cage – ladders, hammocks, ropes. This is an active animal that loves to play. Don’t forget the wheel. Without it, your pet can get joint problems.
- Also put a house in the cage to keep the rat comfortable. Such a house can be built out of a box or bought in a store.
- Do a weekly general cleaning of the cage – wash it and all its contents, change the litter.
- Rats are susceptible to many diseases. If you see that the animal is behaving strangely, it should be shown to the veterinarian.
It is advisable to keep rats in pairs or groups, and the pairs should be same-sex, since this animal is extremely fertile. The female can give birth monthly and will die quickly due to depletion of the body.
The domestic rat’s menu should consist of four food groups: dry food, fresh fruits and vegetables, fermented milk products, animal proteins. The diet should be balanced and varied.
A common mistake when keeping rats is to feed them exclusively on plant foods. In the menu of the animal, it is imperative to add meat and fish of low-fat varieties, you can also give offal – liver, heart. These foods should not be raw or fried; they should be boiled.
Rats love dried fruits. Delight your pet with dried apricots, raisins or prunes.
Do not feed rats with fatty meats and fish, such as pork. Salty food is not suitable for them. Also, not all vegetables and fruits can be given. Raw potatoes, cabbage, cucumbers, beets and spinach, unripe fruits, especially green bananas, are not suitable. As much as you would like to please the rat with fresh herbs, do not give it leaves of indoor plants. In most cases, they are poisonous.
If you adhere to all the recommendations described, the rat will feel great at home. In this case, she will live, as befits any rat, 2,5-3 years.
I seriously don’t get it. I’m making a list of foods that are safe and dangerous for my rats I’ll be adopting yet every site says you can give them cucumbers, cabbage, brussel sprouts, beans, meat(beef, chicken, fish, pork and lamb) yet this and like 2 other articles says not to give it. And then there’s others that’s say you can’t give rats apricots, raisins or any dried fruit for that matter yet this and others says you can. Which is it? Seriously.