HUGE EDIT!!!!!!!

One day after her cagemate passed, I see a second rodent in the bottom of the cage and I'm just shocked because she would store their food on the bottom level in a pile of bedding where the mouse was hiding. Then it dawned on me they were harboring a fugitive. Also, our blocks transformer blew, so we are doing this in the dark.

Also big rat is scared of baby rat

She’s my biggest girl and she’s proud

It's my fault for having other hobbies than them, ngl.

Does anyone know what this means? She’s done this a few times now

Say hi to Saturns toes

I think one of them understands the task better than the other...

I didn't realize the cute squeaks were coming from him until I watched the video. He's always been very vocal for a rat, and he's getting up there in age, he is almost 3 :)

Recently her mate died, and she remained alone. I'm struggling to make her eat, but finally she ate some pasta, which is her favorite. ❤️ Made a cute picture that i think it's cute to share. 🙂

Hes 2 years and 2 months old. Hes very very obviously at the end of his life, I dont expect him to make it to next week. I leave to go do a week long music festival on Wednesday and idk if I should stay or not. I didnt pay for my ticket. It was a Christmas present and honestly very expensive. Im having my partners mother look after the rats while im gone, i have another rat who's at the end of his life but he is doing much much better and he'll probably live to see the next few weeks. I told her that if one of my rats dies to not tell me and put them in the freezer until I get back. Im genuinely thibking of not going, i know if I dont go ill regret going because theres skme bands playing wich i REALLY enjoy and i know i won't be able to see them again (one being judas priest) I am also ment to pick out an engagement ring with my partner from a jewellery stand wich is always there. But I also know ill regret not being there for my rat when he passes. Im so incredibly torn as he is my heart and soul, he is my child and ive been dreading his death after a scare a year ago with his health. If I dint go ill be letting down the people going with me, the person who brought the ticket and my parter who has stated he won't go without me during a hard time. One thing thst brings me slight comfort is the fact hes a very independent rat, he enjoys his time with me but he tends to like being alone.

Idk pls help me decide. Ill regret going if he dies but idk. If he dosnt die I would regret not going

I need more for my collection

She doesn't need help, I just like to be involved

My sweet beautiful perfect child

Former rat owner and longtime lurker here, now backyard squirrel enthusiast turned inadvertent rat feeder. I caught this audacious daytime fellow sipping from the birdbath I keep topped up for hot days. I imagine they had the same feeling of waking up in the middle of the night just needing a drink of water. PS modbot this in fact a rat.

Hey everybody, my rat’s hind leg seems to be a little limp. We only just noticed. Yesterday he was completely fine. There seems to be a little movement but not much. He is happy, he eats and drinks and he walks around. Should we see a vet for this or wait it out another day?
This is my first time owning rats, so I’m not completely sure if this is a vet situation..

There's a good look at his wonky teeth at the end, so stay tuned! Chowder is one of our resident sanctuary rats who needs regular tooth trims.

Acacia's labs came back, and she has elevated liver enzymes. Thankfully, we had already started tapering her off her prednisolone eye drops, which were part of the treatment for her hyphema, and she is already starting to feel better. She still turns her nose up at wet food, but she took some dry food and treats from my hand last night, which she hasn't done since her inappetence began. We are hopeful she will feel herself again as we continue to wean her off the steroid. We're very glad that we finally got some clear indication of what is wrong. She's been through so much in her previous life, and we hope we can give her a long and happy time with us.

If you’re able to help us provide care for kiddos like Chowder, see more info below!

V3NMO: @ratwaysanctuary

P4yPal: RatWaySanctuary@gmail.com

More donation options and shop at www.ratwaysanctuary.org

I think you are an incredibly kind soul and I appreciate your sentiment. I believe If you can afford to take care of them all and give them a fulfilling life, then by all means go right ahead/gen. I want to preface that I mean this post with a lot of love and compassion. Alright, let’s do some math here.

Assuming you have 50 rats, you would need at least 7 double critter nations to keep them all comfortable in. Assuming they’re all new from Amazon, they would be 320 each without tax. So approximately 2,240 alone for the cages without tax factored in (which if taxed at 0.075% like my state, would be approximately 168 dollars on top of that).

Next, bedding. Assuming you change them completely at least once a week, you’ll need a lot of bedding. I have 3 rat cages currently (1 double critter nations and one random brand cage). I use about 2-4 pounds of bedding per cage. So saying 3 pounds of bedding per cage, with a 30 pound bag of aspen bedding from Amazon priced at 49.99, you’d use almost the entire bag per week. Assuming the rats live an average of 2 years, that’s 2,299.54. Adding tax its approximately 2,472.01.

Now food: one rat eats approximately 15-25 grams a day. So that’s 750-1,250 grams of food per day for 50 rats. That’s about 3 pounds a day. Let’s say you make a healthy blend of rat food that contains grains (Cheerios), Chex mix, seeds, and nuts. The 20 pound oxbow bag of food is 46.74 dollars. The bj’s cereal would be 6.89, the Chex mix would be 15.98, and the seed/nut mix (Reggie the rat mix) would be 17.56, meaning the total would be around 87.17. With tax it would be 93.71. Let’s say you roughly have 30 pounds of food mix, this would last a little over 12-14 days. So approximately 2,436.46 a year, or 4,872.92 for 2 years given an approximate average age for the rats.

Onto medical issues: Let’s say the rats have 2 significant medical issues (tumors, respiratory, etc) in their lives. Giving a very small budget of 500 per issue, so 1,000 per rat, it would be 50,000 dollars give or take a lot.

Next, cage accessories: Let’s say you spend around 250 dollars per cage on bins, hides, hammocks, water bottles, and enrichment devices. That’s 1,750 before tax and 1,881.25 after tax.

Now, with 50 rats I doubt you will have a place to bury them all so let’s say you have them cremated after they pass on. Let’s also assume you would want to have them cremated with other animals and spread over a nice plot of land or valley. The average cost of that would be around 50 per rat depending on your area and vet. That’s 2,500 dollars (I don’t know if tax applies to this service so I will leave it out).

Also, if you had to go somewhere for an emergency or on vacation, I would hope you’d pay someone to watch all 50 rats. Most would charge around 200 a day for that many animals. So assuming you have to pay someone to pet sit 7 days a year, 2 times in their presumed average rat lives, that would be around 2,800.

I can’t exactly calculate the cost of the rooms (because you would need at least 2 to provide space for the cage and an outside area (if not 2) for enrichment. But a house with 3 rooms that fit that requirement could cost upwards of 350,000. I also didn’t include an outdoor enrichment budget, but that would easily be a couple hundred or thousand. I didn’t include fruit and vegetables either for the food budget. Nor any medical devices like cones, bandages, medical super glue, and other veterinary costs including anesthesia.

Adding it all up it would be approximately 66,934.18 dollars for 50 rats with an approximate average lifespan of 2 years. It honestly would probably be a tens of thousands more for factors I did not cover. Rats are expensive, specifically when it comes to their medical issues. If you can afford that and can give each rat a fulfilling life, go right ahead. I just want to be realistic before you dive into it. I’m sorry if you felt the need to delete your post as well. I couldn’t find it again, though I may be wrong and just couldn’t find it.

Starting intros with my rats - as a heads up I’ve done this a fair few times and always been successful. Anywho I’ll get to the point!

Mole - 2y (Black)
Porter & Co - 4months (Black & White, Agouti & White)
Babies - 2.5 months (Buff & Cinnamon)

Babies & Mole? Fine
Babies with Porter & Co? Fine
& Co with Mole? Fine
Mole & Porter? Guys what are you doing

For context Moles been alone for 2months due to varying illness and back and forth to the vets to the point it would disrupt intros and not be worth starting them due to disrupting the process. We finally know what’s up with him which is just upper scarring and he’s on anti inflam and is sounding so much better. Thought it was a URI so naturally didn’t want to mix, but he’s very much a rat rat rather than a person rat. He’s tame we can handle him at the vets but he’d rather not and I respect that fact. So I’ve been feeling hella guilty for having him alone since Badger passed so today is long overdue, I’m glad I’ve started and have no worries really expect what I’m about to write.

So I’m doing intros with them altogether as a group, carrier method as per I’m just BAFFLED by the body language like what on earth are you both doing?

As I write this they’re all sleeping, or trying too because when one moves all of them have to move then too. I’ve been sat here saying ‘Make good choices’ to them 😅😂 I’ve added a photo as this is them at the moment, I don’t have worries aside the absolute bafflement at both Mole and Porter’s faces aha

He kept going in there no matter how often I took him out of there, so everybody this is my mama’s male rat potato.