The Rat Lovers Club! ~MODS PLEASE LOCK!

[Rabbitheart]

Rats are domestic, but they have the same instincs as in the wild.

Guinea pigs and rabbits don't get on... that is a pretty well known fact now. Rabbits could kick and kill a guinea pig easily.

I think it's pretty easy to read their body language and rats don't randomly roll onto their backs and submiss. That's fear, so your rats were stressed out. It isn't worth the risk of your pets being killed is it?

Umm...no...it's not. It's not entirely true, Rabbits won't kick and kill a guinea pig. In my house hold, we own both guinea pigs and rabbits. We put the guineas in the hall to play and let one of my rabbits romp around in the hall too, nothing happened. In fact, the rabbit completely ignored the guinea pigs' existance and didn't interact. Same with the guinea pigs.

[rachaelandrats]

Our pets may be domestic but they have all of the same instincs as in the "wild". Why let them meet up? They don't gain anything by it, maybe people do, but is it worth the risk? People letting their pets 'meet' has ended up with injured / dead pets, surely that is reason enough not to even attempt it. If it's to do with not having enough time for them all to play - well don't get as many pets next time if you can't handle it.

As for fur changes, rusting can be related to either old age or poor/lacking diet.

[Centri]

I want to work with animals in the future and in film work different species need to get alone. People who own cats and dogs let them get along, the same goes for guines pigs and rabbits. I am not going to put them together to live together obviously. None of them are stressed out, infact my rats and hamster both seem quiet happy plodding around doing their own thing. I would also like to point out hamster and rats are domestic animals, their behaviour is not the same as what their wild counterparts would be. For example a rat in the wild would run at the sight of a human and jump at every single noise and love swimming. Domestic rats are curious or humans and noises and do not really like water. Not only that but rats and hamsters are not the colours you would find in the wild. A white rat in the wild would quickly be killed by a predator as would a hamster that is not orangy brown in colour.
It's not causing any issues, infact it will be better for them both as it means they will all be able to come out and play for longer as I do not have to get rats out for an hour then rats, it means they can all play for two hours.

Still, there are a lot of people whose rat killed their hamster/mouse/gerbil/bird because the animals met, accidentally or intentionally.
They still have the same basic instincts even if they have been domesticated.

[heartleafed]

My sister's rat is blackish with a white belly, as seen in the picture, but now, on her back she is growing orangeish-brown fur.. She looks so cute! <33 Just wanted to ask if it was normal or not.

My mink girls did that a few weeks after I got them, (but that was more likely from their real mink colors coming in, because they started out almost a blue color)

Nyx has started to do that, where he but's started to rust, but I thought that was just a result of her being a bad chocolate color and not actually black.

[Sadies]

Rats are domestic, but they have the same instincs as in the wild.

Guinea pigs and rabbits don't get on... that is a pretty well known fact now. Rabbits could kick and kill a guinea pig easily.

I think it's pretty easy to read their body language and rats don't randomly roll onto their backs and submiss. That's fear, so your rats were stressed out. It isn't worth the risk of your pets being killed is it?

Rats are not the same as in the wild at all. A rat in the wild would run away at first sight of a human not run over.

Guinea pigs and rabbits can get along. People used to keep them together.

Rats do roll on their backs to submit. My rat Pablo does the same to my other rats.

I have written an A-level report which was all about eat behaviour and instinct in captivity and the wild.

__

Okay, so you are saying that species should not meet. So you are saying dogs and cats should not meet, cats and rabbits. Many zoos ect put species together and they can co-exist. It's not like they will live together, they are simply learning to live near eachother.

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On almost every rodent packet you will find a mixture of rodent pictures where the animals are all sat together to have their photo taken. These animals are trained.

[rachaelandrats]

In those pictures the animals aren't actually sitting together... pictures are taken against a blank background and put together.

I love rats and I've had over 100 of them, but you can't train them to 'get on'.

My dog has a high prey drive, I can't 'train him' to get on with my cats.

Rabbits and guinea pigs... sure they used to be kept together, people thought that was fine, but if you ask anybody who knows about either guineas or rabbits, they would reccomend you keep them completely separate at all times. I didn't say domestic rats and wild rats are completely the same. Yes a wild rat would run away from people..., but it would also kill a hamster in the wild. They are domesticated with us, but their instincts? Completely the same as in the wild. They are the exact same breed, just domesticated.

[iHolli]

{Not all animals have their wild ancestors' instincts. Wolves are fearless creatures, yet my dog is an absolute chicken. And she loves cats. She won't attack or chase them, even if they don't like her.}
{Just goes to show that domesticated animals can have different approaches to other animals than wild ones.}

.Holli.

[Rabbitheart]

Actually, it's not like how you think it is rachel. Guinea pigs and rabbits do get along, what the concern is that you're missinterpreting is that they shoudn't be housed together. This is not only due to the fact that they'll hurt each other or misunderstand their behavior in the cage, it's also because of the fact that rabbits carry bordetella which doesn't affect rabbits, but can kill guinea pigs. The two species will get along in a play situation when they are taken out of their cages and put together on nuetral ground, this I know from experience. Yes it does depend on temperment and age, but most usually they will get along just fine. Just house them seperately so that both will be safe, happy, and healthy.

[Sadies]

In those pictures the animals aren't actually sitting together... pictures are taken against a blank background and put together.

I love rats and I've had over 100 of them, but you can't train them to 'get on'.

My dog has a high prey drive, I can't 'train him' to get on with my cats.

Rabbits and guinea pigs... sure they used to be kept together, people thought that was fine, but if you ask anybody who knows about either guineas or rabbits, they would reccomend you keep them completely separate at all times. I didn't say domestic rats and wild rats are completely the same. Yes a wild rat would run away from people..., but it would also kill a hamster in the wild. They are domesticated with us, but their instincts? Completely the same as in the wild. They are the exact same breed, just domesticated.

Not always, most of the time they are together because it is cheaper.

My dog is bred to be a rat dog, both his parents are rat dogs. He has learnt to live with my cat, guinea pigs and rats. He will not go near them because I have trained him not to.

Instinct can be trained against. They donut with ex-race Greyhounds so they can live with cats and other small creatures and dogs. Rats do not have a strong kill instinct, they bred it out of them when rats were domesticated to be used in labritories or they would be hard to work with.

I don't see why it is such a big deal that I training my rats to be ableto run free in my room while I have my hamster out, if anything it's a good idea because if my hamster gets out then I don't realise and let my rats out they will leave her alone.

[rachaelandrats]

Rats never had their instincts bred out of them... why would a lab find them hard to work with. If a lab was using them for testing, they aren't exactly going to be handling them or introducing them to other animals. You can't breed out their instincs. Domestic rats still do the same things as wild rats. They stash food in the same way, need to live in groups in the same way, all those little things like that. You can't change the animal. I just don't see why on earth you would risk putting your pets together.... to what, say that you 'trained them to'? Sorry but you can't train rats and hamsters to get on with eachother and you can't train them not to have certain instincts. It comes down to one thing and that's just luck. The fact that people have had pets die from introducing them is reason enough to prove that it is wrong to even put your animals in danger like that. You should protect your pets against any possible danger, not use them as some kind of experiment to see if you can train them to get along.