~ September Skies ~  

My orphaned Rat Story

This is the story of how I raised seven baby wild Norway rats, which I'm writing here to help anyone who finds themselves unexpectedly caring for orphaned rats or mice. I hope it's helpful to you, and you can find more information in the orphan links section.

On Christmas Eve, 2003, I found myself in possession of eight ten-day-old baby wild rats, rescued from a dog. Being fairly certain that they were Rattus norvegicus, the same species as pet rats, I hoped to be able to raise them to be good and quiet pets. I wasn't going to simply let them die, and that was that. So I very quickly began to research how to raise orphaned rats! Having done a course in raising orphaned native wildlife gave me a good idea of what I was in for - 4 hourly feeds night and day, wiping faces, cleaning bottoms, keeping them warm, etc. My job was made easier by the fact that they were already ten days old, so they were furry enough not to need a warming pad. I would have used one if there had only been one baby though. Actually, I would have simply carried it around in a pouch in my clothes. But anyway, on with the story :)

Feeding

So I bought some commercially produced "puppy" milk, the kind that comes in tetra packs like long-life milk. Looking back now, I probably should have gone to a vet and asked for some proper puppy-milk-replacer. But it didn't seem to do them any harm. I guess because they were ten days old, they were fairly robust. On the side of the package I could read the levels of nutrients, and realised the puppy milk was lower in fat and protein than mother rat's milk. I tried to find a better one in the supermarket, but couldn't, so when they were eating soft solids, I gave them small amounts of very good quality caned dog food with milk mixed in. The kind that says, when you read the back "meat" and not "meat by-products". I think it was "my dog" or "divine" in these tiny little containers, and just the plain "tender beef" kind. They gobbled that up, though I only gave them a tiny amount, so they didn't get tummy upsets. They didn't. Sometimes their bellies would get so grossly swollen after eating and drinking heaps that I thought something was really wrong! They'd fall asleep in my hand, looking like they'd swallowed a golf-ball :)

I tried several ways to feed them (see the links for other ways, I tried them all!). The most successful method was with a tiny teat (from the vets) on the end of an eye dropper, which I squeezed on the keep the milk at the end of the dropper. If I squeezed too hard, they would get too much milk in their mouths, and some would come out their noses. This is really bad, because if milk actually gets into their lugs, it will get infected, and they'll be really sick. One of the girls got a "ticking" noise in her nose, and I think this was a minor infection of the nasal passages. I tried all sorts of things to clear it up, but what seemed to work best was holding her over a bowl of steaming water (not too hot!) and then sucking on her nose (yes, you may think yuck, but it worked!) After four sessions of this the ticking was gone. I was also giving her special milk with a tiny amount of crushed vitamin C, and a very little bit of garlic in it, to bolster her immune system, and I smeared a tiny amount of Vicks on a top part of the cage wall they couldn't ever reach, to ease her breathing. If it had gone into her lungs (if she'd become rattley and sneezy and looked sick) I would have taken her to the vets.

Housing

While their eyes were closed, I kept them in a "pouch" I sewed from a piece of old blanket, pretty much just a pocket for them to snuggle in. I kept this in a cardboard box with some padding around it to keep them steady and warm. Once they started to move around, I put them in a small aquarium, about the right size for mice, because that was what I had available. I sewed them some pocket hammocks, and hung them from the side of the aquarium with dog clips. The ratties loved their hammocks, diving in whenever anything "scary" happened, and making toasty little rat-piles inside. I gave them ropes and toys to keep them interested. I also sewed an "igloo", by making a sausage, stuffing it with synthetic stuffing, holding it in a circle with an opening where the ends came together, and sewing a circle of material on the top and the bottom. They liked that, but quickly grew out of it. When they were five weeks old I separated them into sexes, and the girls went in with my girls, and the boys upgraded to the leftover large cage from when I built the Ratty Palace.

Medicine

When they were four weeks old I treated them for lice and mites, which I had seen on them when they were still semi-furred. To do this I researched on the web (see the links: health section) and called a few vets. I found one vet assistant who knew what to do, and she offered to sell me some sheep ivermectin drench over the counter. When I came in with one of the boys, she weighed him for me and looked up the dosage, which for this brand was 0.02 ml per 30g body weight (note it's point oh-two, it's important not to overdose!). The ivermectin was only $2.50 for 2 ml. I treated them four times, once a week, and at the same time I completely scrubbed out their house and washed all the hammocks in very hot water.

To actually get the liquid into them, I tried several ways. First I did it individually by holding onto the rat, mixing the medicine with a small amount of milk, and slowly squirting the liquid into their mouths while they licked. They seemed to not mind the taste, however some were not good with the handling. So, that was a moderate success but took a lot of effort and had me chasing one terrified boy around the house for an hour ;)

Next time I tried something different. I was still giving them milk from a saucer, so I got a box, and put a little milk in the box with enough medicine for one rat. Then I put one rat in, and let them drink the milk. This worked fairly well, but some spilled the milk, or decided they were too interested in the box to drink! It also took  a while, and I nearly lost one of the boys with his "flying leap" technique

Next time I had separated the males and females, and decided the smaller numbers would make it easier to give it to them in their water. I simply put the correct dose for two rats in the water the two girls, and enough for four in the boy's water. I only gave them enough water for about 24 hours, and didn't replace it till it was all drunk. I don't think I would recommend this technique - looking back I don't think it was a good idea, one boy could have drunk more, therefore overdosed. It's not a very dangerous drug, but overdoses are not recommended. 

So, the final time I tried another technique, squirting it onto individual pieces of bread, and giving them to the rats. This had mixed success, but I had to separate one boy and give him his alone, because a more dominant boy had pinched his (I got it off him with a struggle!). This technique would work for small numbers of rats. It's how I dose my two adult rats. I have also tried another technique, which is to squirt the medicine directly onto the rat's rump, so they clean it off and ingest the medicine that way. This technique is good for rats that are less handle-able, or where you want to be sure each rat gets their own dose.

The Results

In terms of their suitability as pets, I was disappointed. Though they started out very quiet, they became wilder as they grew. I have since researched the taming of wild rats, and it seems that there is a genetic basis for tame-ability, which is linked to the levels of seratonin in the brain. We humans have selected the quieter rats to breed with when we domesticated rats, and so we have slowly increased the levels of seratonin by selective breeding. In wild rats, it is not a good trait to be relaxed an quiet, and so they are jumpy and quick. I have read that the process of taming a wild rat and mouse sometimes works, when the baby started out with the human from ten days old or less, and the baby spent most of it's time on or around the human. Because my rats were all together, they didn't bond with me, they bonded with each other. Some of the babies were quieter than others, which I would say was natural genetic variation. But though they weren't afraid of me, they were still not friendly.

They were all very quiet when I was hand-feeding them, and saw my hand as the source of food. I'd put my hand in and they would all clamber up my arm, it was really hard to put them back in, they would turn upside down to stay on my hand! But the older they got, the more cautious of me and anything unusual they became.

I think part of this is because I made a mistake in raising them. You see, it took me an hour and a half to feed all eight rats, and I had to start again four hours later. I got really exhausted, though I loved handling them. When the day came that I decided they were old enough to drink from a saucer (about four weeks old), I heaved a great sigh of relief. I went out and did some of the things I hadn't been able to do for two weeks, like visit my friends and family, and sleep through the night! 

I didn't handle them enough during the week after they were weaned, I was too happy to be free of the feeding routine. I think this was an essential week, and their socialisation was partly messed up by this week-long lax in handling. When I started to want to play with them again, they were frisky and nervous. I think this is where the genetics part come in - I think they were naturally cautious, but lots of handling was overcoming that, and when that stopped their natural caution came back. Then matters became worse, when there was a jail-break overnight, and I spent a whole day tracking them all down. One female never came back, she'd found the hole under the sink (I normally have that cupboard closed, but wouldn't you know, it was open that night!). We heard her moving around in there, but she never got caught in our live trap, and eventually moved on. Perhaps she met a handsome boy rat, and eloped! (needless to say, I never told the neighbors!).

The fear of being chased around the house was not endearing them to me, or any human presence. Some took hours to extract from under bookcases or inside cupboards, and we had to deliberately scare them into posting-tubes. After that event, they just didn't like me! That said, it's not like they were terrified. There was one female who constantly tried to climb onto me, but she simply saw me as a way down to the ground. She would climb up my arm, then try to make her way down my top, forever trying to get off me and onto the floor. She just couldn't sit still, no matter what. So she was "quiet", but not tame. Two of the boys were similar. They also all hated being in captivity, especially the girl who always wanted to climb down. She would spend part of her waking time running up and down the wires, and gnawing on the door frame trying to get out. I guess her taste of freedom that night infected her with a taste for the wild, or maybe being enclosed went against all her natural instincts. The females were also frightened of my big girls, once they went in with them, and wouldn't share the same level with them. They did sniff each other, and sometimes ate near each other, but the wild girls never settled down with them.

In the end, after many attempts to tame them, and much advice from ratty friends, I realised they were just never going to become the quiet pets I had hoped for. So, with a few tears and a lot of guilt, I took them to a nice play, far away from houses (so they couldn't get poisoned), where there was water and grassland with lots of seeds, and some think prickly bushes fro them to hide in and be safe. I set them up with boxes with a door and a stash of food, and put them boxes down on opposite sides of the field (so they would be less likely to have babies) under the bushes. They jumped out and had a run around, and seemed to really enjoy themselves. You could see that they were wild rats, they moved with such caution and quick darting jumps, not like a domestic rat would, so I don't think their time with me made them less likely to survive in the wild. I hope they did well. At least I gave them a chance at life, that they would never have had otherwise.

                                    Created on the 13th Feb 2004.      Last updated 10/4/05.