Bathing your Rats

Bathing your Rats

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Bathing Pet Rats

Rats are very clean animals, but there are times you need to give them a bath. Some rats will groom non-stop and others will have better things to do, and will need what I call rattie maintenance.


Cage Maintenance

First thing is first, a clean cage! Even the best kept rats will become dirty and smelly of you do not keep the cage floor or bedding clean. It is also important to have a clean cage for your rats health and wellbeing.
depending on how dirty your rats is, or gets you can opt for a full lets swim bath or a simple and relaxing wipe me off sponge bath. I like to keep my bath times few and far between and shot and sweet. Rats have natural oils in their skin that they need bathing to often will strip these oils and basically cause you to have itchy sickly looking rat. So don't bathe to often.


Good Reasons to give your Rat a Bath
Sick, over weight, or injured rats.
These rats will need more care and may not be able to clean themselves, therefore you would have to do it for them. until they are well enough or have lost enough weight to do so. Make sure in this time you take extra care to keep your rats clean, as poor hygiene can cause other health issues, or could make a injury, or illness worse.
Buck GreaseSome intact males you will notice and orange/yellow oil on their backs. This is caused by testosterone secretions. This is in my opinion nasty looking and is very oily. So I use a good scrubbing with dish soap.
Introducing new rats
In this case making everyone smell the same can help a ton with intros. Some say you can just add vanilla to their back, but for me a good scrub down seems to work best. It also seems to cut down on the dominance urination, which is another reason for a bath ha-ha. So you can hopefully prevent baths for that reason.
Parasites or other skin issuesIn this case you would use a medicated shampoo, or whatever treatment you are using for the parasites or skin conditions.
Showing
I have never done showing, but I think that you are supposed to bathe for shows.
Smelly ratties
Some rats like I sadi before just don't clean themselves and tend to be more smelly or have muskier odor. I notice this more in my male rats than females. Males are lazier and I don't think clean as often as the female rats. Other times rats just get dirty or get things on their fur than call for a bath. like the days they have berries!


Shampoo you can use
Dish Soap
Kitten shampoo
oatmeal shampoo
Baby Shampoo( my personal choice)
Before you start giving your rat a bath you need to make sure you have all the supplies you need. I like to keep all my stuff in a Rubbermaid container under my bathroom sink. Since that is where I give all my rattie baths. The other thing you may want to do before you give your rat a bath is trim their nails. Some rats will hate a bath, screaming, and fighting the whole time, others will love it and just have fun floating and relaxing. So a good nail trim never hurts.


My Bathing and Grooming kit
This is what i keep in my bathing /grooming kit
Q-tips(to make sure the ears are dry)
shampoo- baby shampoo and dish soap for buck grease(travel size)
2 toothbrushes(one for brushing and one for the tail)
nail trimmers
a couple old rags

a small Ziploc baggie of very special treats
Other things you could include would be brushes(i use a tooth brush) and special shampoos, such as medicated shampoo, sensitive skin shampoo, and old towels.
Now for the actual bathing. Fill up your sink with warm water, and get your rat wet. If your rat hates water let him sit on a towel while you lather him up with shampoo. Use the toothbrush to gently scrub the tail, Then use an old damp rag to get the face and ears. Make sure you don't get soap in the eyes. When it is time to rinse of your rat, turn on the faucet and rinse him off using the running water. then place on a fluffy towel and dry him off. Dry out their ears with a Q-tip(DON"T STICK IT IN THE EAR) I also like to use my blow dryer on low to keep them warm and dry them a little faster. None of the rats seem to mind this, but I have been doing that since they were babies. Brush them with the dry tooth brush and your all finished.
Tail cleaning!
When cleaning your rats tail, always make sure you start at the base and clean down to the tip! If you clean in the opposite direction you can cause debris to get stuck in the tail and this can cause infection and bacteria growth. Also make sure you clean the tail very gently, rats tails are important for many things and are also very sensitive.
I think that about covers all the rat bathing how to's. I hope this helps you and makes bathing your rat a fun enjoyable experience. Don't forget to follow me and leave a comment. Also feel free to ask any questions!

Homemade Rat Food

Homemade Rat Food

I have been doing a lot of research online about rats and their nutritional needs. One I wanted to reduce the cost of the food, I wanted to give them to have a well balanced diet, as well as have more food on hand than you get just giving lab blocks.
I found some great information online about rats diet and their nutritional requirements. If you wanted to look into some great nutritional information you can find it at http://ratguide.com/care/nutrition/diet.php and at http://ratfanclub.org/diet.html. This is how I found a lot of the information to be able to make my homemade rat food. I am currently using subees homemade rat diet. My rats love it and you get a lot of food for your money.
With the lab blocks I was using I was paying outrageous amounts for shipping and was only getting 5 to ten pounds at a time. So I have decided to go with a low protein dog food. Usually for seniors. The dog food needs to be no more than 18% protein, but 14 % protein would be better. Then add raw noodles( I get the spiral multi-colored ones), Dried bananas, dried cranberries, Quaker oatmeal, Nuts(soy), cereal( cheerios, total, corn flakes, or even Kashi. Also add sunflower seeds(unsalted) and some plain popcorn. I buy the popcorn seeds and pop it on the stove. You can also add some pumpkin seeds, supplements, or even rat blocks if you want to. that is all for the dry portion of the food. Just be creative, you know what your rats like. as long as it is healthy and dry it will work. I know it looks like it will be more expensive but mixing all this together makes a lot of food for your rats and last a lot longer than 13.00 for 5-10 pounds or less of rat blocks, and hen plus shipping at 20.00 for maybe a month of food. Besides a lot of Rat food does not contain the right nutrition anyway.
For this portion you need another bowl, and maybe a mini fridge (ha-ha). This is the wet food i call it. For this you can mix up tons of different things for your rats. Here are some good healthy things to feed them with the dry diet.
Frozen veggies like carrots, corn, peas etc.
Fresh veggies like the ones listed below (there are a lot)
Dark green leafy vegetables
This includes Cabbage, Kale, Spinach, Spring Greens, broccoli etc. All of these veggies are great additions to your rats diet,they are rich in vitamins and minerals and antioxidants. Broccoli also has been shown to reduce the risk of cancer. Everyone knows that is a great thing for rats! Kale is the highest in vitamins, but broccoli is a close second.
Root vegetables
This includes Carrots, Potatoes, and other roots. Carrots are the best and full of the most yummy goodness, however this is quite easy to give too much and give your rats runny stools. Also to many carrots have been known to cause the stools to smell stronger. So feed in moderation.
Warning – green potatoes should not be fed; some people are wary about feeding any raw potato and prefer to feed it cooked.
Watery vegetables
These include cucumber, lettuce, celery and similar vegetables. I feed more watery veggies when it is hot because of their water content and I want to make sure they stay fully hydrated. The best of these is cucumber. Lettuce to frequently can cause loose stools so again moderation is key. Warning Celery has been know to cause cancer! So i never really give that to my rats just to be safe.
Other useful vegetables
This includes peas, sweetcorn, corn on the cob, mushrooms etc. Peas are a great for your rats and can also be given frozen. It is also so fun to see them do pea fishing! Just get a bowl with water and drop the peas in, they literally will dive in for this tasty treat! You can even add some Sweetcorn to the water rats love it just as much. If you are wanting your rats to work for their food a great solution is Corn on the cob still in the husk. this will challenge your rats and allow them to use their brains to find the yummy goodness inside (variety is the key). Mushrooms contain high levels of copper, a lot of rats diets do not have this so the rats will become deficient in this, especially in homemade diets.
Ok that is all for the veggies, if your not sure if a veggie is ok for rats you can always look it up or go to a great rat forum and ask they are very very informational. I recommend goosemoose rat forum!
Now for Fruits
Berries
These include strawberries, blue berries, grapes (red are the best), black berries, raspberries and pomegranate. Many fruits contain high levels of Antioxidants. . Antioxidants can reduce the risk of cancer and better the immune system. Also when you feed berries take note of that! I remember feeding them that and the next morning everyone was stained red, I thought one was missing a leg of something...then I remembered I fed them berries Ha-ha.
Citrus Fruit
These include oranges, lemon, lime, mango, papaya, grapefruit etc. This groups of fruits are fine to be fed to female, but I would not feed them to your male rats, they have been linked to testicular cancer. So again I stay away from these for my males.
Watery Fruit
These include; Apple, pear, grapes, melon, berries and similar fruit with high water content. These I also feed to them more in the hotter months! Not to mention the rats think they taste better than veggies, but who doesn't. They always have the additional sugar that will give them a little more sugar in the hotter months. Also one thing you do not want to forget about is the seeds in these fruits, all of them can be sat out and left to dry, so make sure you don't that yummy part go to waste. They love them just as much if not more than the dried pumpkin seeds. Plus it saves you money, and gives your rats more yummy goodness.
High Calorie Fruits
These include Banana and Avocado. These are good in moderation, or if you have a sick rat than needs softer foods. I have also used them for very skinny rescues to fatten them up a little faster. I am not sure if this works or not, but it seemed to do the trick for all my skinny ratties i have taken in. Of course I feed them all the regular diet, but I added bananas to their daily diet for about a week, with lots of other higher in fat foods!
Other Yummy goodness includes
Yogurt
cooked pasta
meal worms
crickets
Baby food
baby oatmeal
Herbs
crackers
yogies
homemade rat treats
I have also started growing a mini herb garden in my rat room for my rats. I have basil, mint, sage, and parsley in mine. They love to play in it and eat it when they are free roaming. I also thinks it has made my boys smell better. I don't know if it cause they run through it and play, or if it's because they eat it. Either way if you have smelly rats give it a try, and see if it works for you.
Forage
There are tons of wild plants your rats can eat that grow in your own back yard. The love dandelions, and clovers. You may also see them catch a cricket, dig up a worm, catch a fly or eat meal worms. Make sure your lawn is pesticide free!!
Basically you can have fun with your rats diets. They can have almost anything healthy for humans. They love a variety and love to eat, so really its a win win for everyone. I feed my rats all kinds of things and have been known to even slip them not so good foods, but they love them in tiny amounts. Of course never forget to make sure they have fresh water everyday!
Other very helpful links for rat fruits and veggies are http://www.rattypaedia.org
Be sure to follow and check out my other hubs about rats and rat care, and even making hammocks, and teaching tricks!
Another good tip is to grow a garden full of the things you plan to feed your rats, you can save a ton of money that way and its also fun. You get to be satisfied with a pretty garden both you and your rats can use. Just be sure not to use and pesticides!

WELCOME WELCOME WELCOME!!!

WELCOME WELCOME WELCOME!!!!

Ok well time for my very first ever blog post!

Hello Everyone, 

I am so so happy you have decided to join me on my missions to show the world that rats are AMAZING!!! On my blog and my site i am going to share ton's of rat information, and not just the boring stuff like care and blah blah....I want the world to be able to see first hand how amazing rats are as pets. So I plan on adding tutorials on how to make hammocks, toys, treats, of course rats care and you will get to see dailey my journey with my very own pet rats. Come join me for all the fun, excitement and cuteness I have planned for you and of course my hero's my RAT'S!!! Oh and if there is anything you want to know or see a blog or video on just let me know....I will be more than happy to take request! 

We will cover lots of rat care, but I am a teenager and I want it to be fun most of all and educational too. I recently rescued 5 rats, 3 girls we found out where prego, so soon we will be having a rat naming contest and our very first giveaway! I still have not figured out what or how we will do it but it will for sure have to do with naming 26.....yes 26 baby rats!! So make sure you share and follow me. I will be sure to return the favor. 

Well I have to go now so I can go finish buttons all kids of other cool blogging things, oh and stay posted for new pages being added everyday! We will have a shop(more than likely through weebly I think) also adoptions, rat vets in the area, crafts and even one full page of things to make for your rats. So everyone will have easy access to RATTY GOODNESS and FUN:) I am also working a e-book with my mom about rats. so please please follow and stay tuned. 

Oh so so many ideas going through my head lol, but for real this time I have to go find more blogging goodness, so I can post more ratty goodness hehehehe! One more thing I will also be opening a youtube account for tutorials, and tons of other stuff to. Link soon to come for all the fun!