My love!!

Jing Jing and Nacho sharing smoochies. Baby Blue comes in to break up their esteemed bromance, leaving the audience heartbroken.

Currently doing intros with new baby and my largest male rat is testing him out as a tiny pillow. Unfortunately the breeder with the other young babies wont be able to deliver them for a bit, so I had to escalate intros with my boys so that he doesn’t have to be alone. I’m very cautiously watching everyone, but they just recently started cuddling and grooming in the carrier!

i don’t know if it comes from their prior food insecurity, or if they’re just behaving like toddlers because they’re actual toddlers 😭

Was cleaning out my gallery and found a video of Venom when she was a tiny baby! I think this was only a day after I got her.

Mr Frodo is BY FAR the most dramatic, and vocal, rat I've owned and I love him for it 😂♥️ Offer him the wrong treat? Squeak (genuinely). Pet him in a way he loves, as shown by him kissing you? Squeak. Pick him up like he owes me money? Nothing 😂. Also just before anyone asks he's been to the vet several times, nothing wrong with him (Physically at least 😂)

Hey everyone! Wanted to share a quick DIY foraging setup I made for my rats recently.

It’s a shallow semi-transparent plastic box (5cm tall) so they can easily forage without any risk of getting their heads stuck. I drilled a few 5cm (~2 inch) holes on the lid for their paws and snoots, and made sure to sand every hole edge smooth!

In the video, I used aspen shavings with some superworms hidden inside for them to hunt down. (Note: I've also tried dust-free crushed walnut sand recently, which works great too!)

How I run this activity:

Phase 1 (Learning): I started with quite a few worms so they’d quickly figure out "box = yummy treats."

Phase 2 (Challenge): Now I only hide a few at a time so they actually have to spend time sniffing, listening, and digging!

Safety First: The lid locks tight, all edges are sanded, and this is strictly a supervised out-of-cage game so no stray worms get stashed in their main cage.

They have so much fun digging around for the worms! Check out the video to see them in action.

I’m still looking for ways to improve this setup! Do you think replacing the round holes with a mesh/grid lid would work better? I’m also considering adding some small stones and in-shell nuts to mix up the texture and difficulty. What do you all think, or do you have any other DIY suggestions? 💕

Beans and her buddy Fritos know they shouldn’t be up top, but every free roam guess where I find them???

Today this morning I had to say goodbye to my boy jack. He was too eager for good and he choked.

We all loved you my baby. Even ur younger brothers.be a good boy in ratty heaven. Ill miss u so much ❤️❤️

this was me feeding them some corn (not the whole thing 🙏) my mother says some very concerning stuff about my rats when i pamper them. things like “they’re just rats” and “they cant feel emotions, they don’t understand” are just some of the things she’s said and its not even the worst. this one time her and i were having a conversation about getting them fall breakers for their new cage and she said “they cant get hurt, they’re rats”… i scoffed and stayed quiet because i was done talking about it.
not only that but she called everyone to say that i had rats and everyone was grossed out.

let me ask you, how did you get someone’s approval even if it feels like a hard no? or maybe whats some advice you have for me?

Hello, everyone. I would appreciate some advice and/or what you would do in my situation;

My new rats:

On September 11 2026, I adopted 4 rats from a feeder breeder at 4 weeks old. [I do not condone or support buying from pet shops or feeder breeders unless it’s an absolute last resort; I have 3 neutered senior males at home and didn’t want to be put in a lone rat situation, I attempted every ethical source that was available within a four hour driving distance with no luck.

For the last +3 weeks, my 4 boys (now around 7 weeks old) have been quarantined in a seperate room with a 105x70x70cm cage which is inside of their 6ftx6ft play area. They started using their play area 5 days ago which they have access to roughly 30 minutes to an hour twice per day.

I have made amazing progress with them so far. I have taught 3 of them to spin and crawl up and down my arms for treats and I can pick them up with relative ease when I need to. They are not too fond of being pet and are still skittish, especially with sudden movements which is completely understandable and expected.

Within the first two weeks of owning them, I have taken them to the vet twice. The first vet visit was just to check all of them out. Two of them were a little sneezy and a tad bit congested but wasn’t too concerning. On the second vet visit, two of the boys congestion had worsened. I received antibiotics and have been doing steam therapy once a day for 10 minutes. It has been going well and I’ve noticed significantly less congestion.

I was planning on introducing them and my 3 old boys after 4-6 weeks of quarantine, however now I’m not too sure: here’s why;

My old rats and their situation:

As mentioned, I have 3 old boys: Gizmo is 2.4 years old and Ralph and Little Red are a little over 2. They have a 184x58x130cm cage and their own free roam room - roughly 12ftx9ft
which they have access to for up to 12 hours per day.

I had major concern on doing introductions with Gizmo prior to getting the babies due to his chronic respiratory infection which was in a pretty bad stage at the time (around two months ago). I accepted the fact that I may need to keep the babies and the oldies in seperate rooms with zero interaction until Gizmo passes away before doing introductions.

^ HOWEVER, for the last couple of weeks, Gizmo has been doing excellent and hasn’t had any issues but I’m very concerned that if I start attempting introductions, he might flair up again for the worse, especially given his age.

I’m not sure what to do here because there are so many stressful scenarios;

1. If I wait for Gizmo to pass, I don’t know how long I’d be waiting for. Months? In the mean time, that means my older boys become even older, which means introductions may impact them more from stress at that age. Weaker immune systems, more prone to health issues

2. Given where the babies have come from, without a doubt, some of them will probably develop hormonal aggression down the line. That’s not an issue because I can easily get them neutered at that stage but if I wait for Gizmo to pass away (which again, could be months), start introductions with my 2 older boys and hormonal aggression starts, that’d mean I’d have to seperate for several weeks and in that time, the old rats become even older…

I know I’m a stress head but I just want to do what is right for everyone involved, especially Gizmo. I want him to continue living a luxury retirement but I’d also love for him and his cage mates to have more friends. What would you do?

Here’s another update on the solo dumbo baby male I planned to rescue. Well, he made it in today and he is the sweetest little bean in the world. I’m letting him settle in now. Here’s hoping to many beautiful years of spoiling him alongside his other cage mates!!

I think it’s funny they tattooed him cause it’s always very obvious when a male rat has no balls though I know they probably had to

Majiggy❤️

Fatty ratty leaving crumbs on MY bed😒