Blog Categories
Hormonal Aggression in Male Rats
Your boys got along great when they were babies, but all of a sudden they’re fighting.
Maybe they’re growing up, maybe an old rat passed away, or you introduced new rats, and a previously chill rat has become increasingly tense and combative, fighting other rats and maybe even biting people. Maybe they’re grooming everyone really intensely, scent marking like crazy, maybe they suddenly get really tense when you pat them, and have to be on top of your hand instead of below it (if so, you may be in danger of being bitten!), or maybe they have a lot of orange grease on their back these days that you may have thought was mites, and smells oddly of toasted corn chips.
If this sounds like your rats, you might be witnessing the effects of hormonal aggression, or ‘HA’ for short. It’s one of the most common reasons for distressed owners to reach out to us for advice or rehoming. It’s a heartbreaking, sometimes avoidable situation that causes so much stress for owners, puts rats in bad welfare situations, and can cause a lot of damage.
The Ethics of Rescuing and Releasing Wild Rats
If you find a wild rat, what should you do?
In this blog post, Vollie Lydia gives a bite sized introduction to the ethics of rearing, releasing or rescuing wild rats. This is a difficult topic, but one that the rescue believes is important to understand.
- #VollieLydia, RRH Writing Team
Rat Feeding Series: Part 2
Now that we have covered the two main types of base diets, let's discuss how you can introduce or increase feeding enrichment for your mischief. These are approaches to feeding and ways to feed that you can do regardless of base diet.
As we learned in the Enrichment Series (written by Alison Campbell), the bedrock of enrichment is natural behaviours, this means that facilitating naturalistic enrichment is one of the most important tasks a rat parent should undertake. Below I will be quoting directly from Enrichment for Rats Part 5 - Seeking, Pleasure, and Reward.
“…rats (in common with all mammals) have four top-level emotional systems as described by Panksepp. These are Fear, Rage, Panic, and Seeking…
Rat Feeding Series: Part 1
We have a new blog post that begins a 3-part series all about feeding your rats!
If you want to read about base diet types, methods of feeding and diversifying your food offerings - make sure you tune in over the next three blog posts to find out everything you can about feeding your rats for health and enrichment!
Part 1 is live now, all you could want to know about types of rat diets!
Written by #VollieLydia, edited by #VollieJas
Help! I think my rats’ eyes and nose are bleeding!
We have a new blog post all about porphyrin!
Porphyrin is some red gunkies that can build up around a rats nose and eyes that can scare new rat owners, who mistake it for blood.
If you want to know more, come give the new blog post by #VollieLydia a squiz!
Keeping Rats Cool in Summer
It's hot over here in the rescue, and we're doing our best to keep our rats cool and comfortable. Over on the blog, we have written a handy guide to keep your rats cool during the summer, and what to do in heat emergencies! Go take a squizz, while it's still hot.