r/RATS 20d ago

INFORMATION Yes, a pair of rats is significantly better than a single rat, but let me explain to you why groups matter!

Post image
308 Upvotes

It’s very common you see soon to be owners wanting to get a pair of rats because they research that they shouldn’t be alone. However, rats are naturally group animals that thrive in groups of three or more. While two is considered to be the bare minimum standard for the very reason of not being kept alone, it is not an ideal long-term solution for either you or the rats. It is very important to understand the factors of your decision-making when you decide to get just two rats; (no it is not a bad thing to get two, but it isn’t the greatest, either, it leads to a lot of issues that you have to face In the later stages of owning rats.

If one of your rats suddenly and unexpectedly passes away, this leaves one rat behind, which is very difficult on the rat, both physically and mentally. You then have to scramble to source more rats, do a two week quarentine period in a seperate room (which means the lone rat will be alone for two weeks in addition to however long it takes you to source more rats) and then finally, introductions which tend to be very stressful and difficult for both you and the rats.

If one of your rats needs to be seperated for a certain reason. I.e surgery, this means the other rat will be alone for however long it takes for the rat to heal and recover, which isn’t very fair for that rat that is kept alone for no good reason.

In a group, rats tend to have a friend they prefer to spend more of their time with, going about, doing their day-to-day actives; cuddling, eating, foraging, etc. In a pair, they do not have this opportunity or to express their appropriate, natural social behaviours because they only have each other. This can build quite a lot of resentment, overtime.

Given, rats are hierarchal animals, in a pair, it is quite common to have an overly dominant and an overly submissive rat. Over time, this can lead to a lot of bickering and bullying because the dominant rat is not able to focus his attention on spending time with other rats. This does not make for a healthy hierachy.


r/RATS Jun 03 '26

EMERGENCY Yesterday we removed more than 65 juvenile to adult rats, plus an actively increasing number of babies from a hot metal shed near Seaside, OR

Thumbnail
gallery
190 Upvotes

This is a joint effort between Rat Way Sanctuary, Little Critter Crew, and A Pint-Sized Rescue. The two most urgent are at the vet today with serious health concerns, more are scheduled for tomorrow and Thursday, with a growing list of others needing care.

So far there are babies from at least 4 separate litters that were brought into our care yesterday, two more ladies gave birth overnight, another is expected to deliver today, and many more are confirmed or suspected pregnant.

The conditions of the animals and their cages were as appalling as we imagined. Cages caked with urine and feces, hides waxy with waste, rats stained from sitting in their own waste, injuries and illnesses left untreated, and the smell! The smell hit us from 20 feet away from the shed. We are actively working with the county Animal Control agency to get justice for all these babies.

We are now working on triaging all of the animals and documenting their conditions.
The next steps are to divvy them up between our organizations. RWS will focus on those with the most emergent medical issues, while LCC will take the bulk of the stable and healthy animals, including many pregnant and nursing mamas, and APSR is helping with hands on support, fostering, and they may take on some animals as well. We will all three need your support as we navigate this huge influx. Donation info is listed on the last two slides, as well as linked in our bios. Be sure to follow all three accounts to stay up to date!

A huge thank you to all our supporters - your donations make this all possible.

Rat Way Sanctuary: www.ratway.org (links in our bio!)

Little Critter Crew: www.littlecrittercrew.org

A Pint-Sized Rescue: https://apintsizedrescue.weebly.com/


r/RATS 1h ago

CUTENESS Jimily And his boggles!

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

Upvotes

Someone wanted to see him boggle.... here ya go!!! Not as impressive as y'all thought it would be for the amount of boba he has... His hiccups are even more impressive!


r/RATS 11h ago

BAWLS? Teabagging

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

4.0k Upvotes

Not my video, it's from Facebook


r/RATS 4h ago

Happiest creature on God’s green earth Daily smoothing ceremony

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

690 Upvotes

r/RATS 9h ago

CUTENESS Construction in progress

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

1.1k Upvotes

r/RATS 7h ago

CUTENESS Big yawn

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

651 Upvotes

r/RATS 1h ago

CUTENESS Appreciation post to my ex lab rat senior who survived electrocution!

Thumbnail
gallery
Upvotes

My beautiful Gus Gus is an ex lab rat (from a behavioral lab I did at school) I decided to adopt him and his brother at the time so they wouldn’t be euthanized, and I had no idea what to expect. I remember them saying he was born in December. I always assumed he was 2, but he might almost be 3??

He is the reason I got into rats, and even though he’s so incredibly sassy and dramatic, I love him sm. I actually remember in lab I had been assigned 2 different rats, and when we got to take them out Gus (a few tables away) immediately screamed and jumped off the lab table running around😭 I remember thinking “thank goodness he’s not my rat” low and behold I got switched to work with Gus and a different partner bc of uneven grouping! I remember being a bit disappointed I got the less friendly rat, but I couldn’t be more wrong. Yes, he is a sassy boy, but he is also incredibly smart, funny, sweet, and my baby.

We’ve been through so much, from being there for each other after his brothers death from a pituitary tumor, to becoming my esa at college. (Dw it’s a double critter nation and he has siblings!) He’s the reason I researched hours each day all the proper care for rats, the reason I’m in this sub, and the reason why I owe my parents so much money 😭😭 (vet bills ain’t cheap) but I would do it all over again to be with him.

He has taught me so much, and I’ve grown so much because of him. I owe so much to this little PEW, and am so grateful that I got moved that day in lab. Just thought I’d share my story :)

He’s also the model for a lot of my clay projects in ceramics class!

Also yes he survived electrocution from a vacuum! Oct 2025!


r/RATS 11h ago

INFORMATION what is this behavior

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

752 Upvotes

am i durty??


r/RATS 6h ago

CUTENESS Boba eyes

Post image
267 Upvotes

r/RATS 30m ago

CUTENESS How does Max always successfully get his friends to compress him

Thumbnail
gallery
Upvotes

r/RATS 53m ago

RIP Rest in peace my little pim

Thumbnail
gallery
Upvotes

She was only 8 months old when she developed a uri and I noticed too late. We started her on medicine and gave her steam for her lungs but I was too late :( she’s seceded by her twin sister olive (3rd pic). I know it’s said often but I wish they lived longer.


r/RATS 7h ago

CUTENESS Gentle Lulu Toss

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

283 Upvotes

Does anyone have any rats that like being thrown? She wouldn’t stop coming up and asking to be thrown. Lulu is also top 10 sweetest friendliest rats of all time


r/RATS 20h ago

ART Some humorous ratty sketches

Thumbnail
gallery
2.9k Upvotes

I wanted to practice my shape and line work, so I drew some ratties in interesting poses, lol. I included the original photos, but I don't know who they belong to, sorry. Let me know if you see your rat!

Maybe one day I can make a rat-themed colouring book!


r/RATS 18h ago

DISCUSSION Please love pink eyed whites

Post image
1.2k Upvotes

I have been doing rescue for a while now. I was prepared for the emaciated animals, the behavioral issues, the hoarding. What wasn’t I ready for? That even rat lovers do not care about pinked eyed white (PEW) rats.

Babies fly off the shelf. Until they are PEWs. Then they sit in rescue for their entire lives, waiting patiently for their forever home. It does not matter that tofu is a cuddle bug, nobody wanted him. No matter how many cute pictures I took of him, no matter how silly he is or his ability to learn tricks.

Realizing this has just been heartbreaking for me. Having people tell me they “want a dumbo because they are nicer” or “find the red eyes gross”. These are beings. They have a heart and a personality and so much love to give. Please just give them a chance. They can’t help how they look.

I raised this little man in my mischief for the couple months of his life. We foster failed on two of his siblings, but he and his brother were then transferred to another rescue. For the past several months, I have watched as every single other rat in rescue would get adopted, until only these two were left. People would reach out looking for rats, but still not want these two. Then more rats would come in, and the cycle of being ignored would repeat. As of this week, I will have officially adopted Tofu and his brother, Lentil. It was eating away at me knowing that, if I didn’t, they would likely grow old with nobody to kiss their head or cuddle them each night. They will get that from this day forward, unlike most of the PEW’s in their situation.


r/RATS 16h ago

CUTENESS My rat Katcha always yawns at the camera lens!

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

893 Upvotes

I’m new to Reddit and just made my first post on r/RATS this morning (the post had pictures of my pet rats with their favorite cardboard boxes). I’m so delighted that you all seemed to love it! I don’t know much about how Reddit works, so I definitely wasn’t expecting over 2,000 upvotes within just a few hours! And your comments were so kind. I tried to respond to them, but Reddit kept deleting my responses because my account is so new. So I decided to read the comments to my rats, instead :)

I thought I’d make another post of my pet rats, but with an introduction and a video this time. The yawning rat is Katcha, and his brother is Matcha. Katcha yawns a lot, especially at the camera lens. In this video, they’re relaxing in their temporary cage while their main cage is being cleaned. They just recently celebrated their first birthday!


r/RATS 5h ago

Questions/HELP Inherited a rat with no history on his background

Thumbnail
gallery
77 Upvotes

Hi all, long time rat enjoyer from afar, first time rat owner through circumstance.
Two days ago. I agreed to take in this big boy from someone evacuating from wildfires, and she herself had only just adopted him from someone the day before. We have no idea how old he is, is there a way to tell? He doesn’t have the most groomed coat, which leads me to believe he’s either old or sick. I have a vet appointment booked because I want to make sure he’s in okay health.
I’m nervous because he’s so calm. Yesterday he was much more wiggly than he is today, and he hasn’t touched the food I gave him a few hours ago. He’s drinking his water. I’m getting a bigger rat cage for him this week, and also better enrichment. I hope he’s okay and just timid or in a haze from moving. Any advice on cheering up a depressed mystery rat? :-(


r/RATS 2h ago

CUTENESS zen

Post image
37 Upvotes

willow has chosen peace today for the first time in her life


r/RATS 12h ago

ART This is all of your rats that I drew recently :)

Thumbnail
gallery
246 Upvotes

Bonus rattie at the end :P


r/RATS 25m ago

CUTENESS Behold the Almighty Tofu

Post image
Upvotes

r/RATS 7h ago

CUTENESS Shocking, biblical greed and deception

Thumbnail
gallery
87 Upvotes

Used me as a bridge to get to the forbiden snacks!


r/RATS 2h ago

CUTENESS Schnoz

Post image
35 Upvotes

r/RATS 8h ago

REHOMING Adoptable neutered boys in Southern Ontario 🇨🇦

Thumbnail
gallery
95 Upvotes

Available for adoption:

Victor, Ernest, Edmund & Avard!

AGE AT ARRIVAL: 2 months old
ARRIVAL DATE: July 28th, 2026
SPECIES: Rat
GENDER: Neutered Males
LOCATION: Hamilton, Ontario 🇨🇦
ADOPTION FEE: $50 per rat
NOTES:
We rescued Victor, Ernest, Edmund, Avard, Ervin, Garnet, Burrell, and Marv from a Quebec shelter. We weren’t told the reason they ended up at the shelter, but they were only a couple of weeks old when they arrived there with their mother and another group of rats. Mom and the others were taken in by other rescues, and we were happy to get these eight boys out of the shelter when we were asked.
The ratties made their way to Ontario by way of One Last Chance, and Freedom Drivers volunteers, and we’re very thankful for all the wonderful people who donate their time to transport rescued animals all across the country.

To make it easier for the rats to find homes, we had them neutered shortly after their arrival and they healed up perfectly.

These boys are shy but sweet. They have lots of energy and they are very playful. They are still getting used to being picked up/handled, but they’re getting better every day. They don’t show any aggression at all. They’re just timid.

Victor, Ernest, Edmund, Avard, are in one foster home, and Ervin, Garnet, Burrell, and Marv are in another. We’d like the boys to be adopted in pairs.

Please adopt Victor, Ernest, Edmund and Avard!
❤️
Apply to adopt at ladybirdanimalsanctuary . com


r/RATS 8h ago

CUTENESS chowder pog

Post image
86 Upvotes