Today's Washington POST recommends rats as one of five Starter Pets for Kids. While I agree wholeheartedly with their reasoning rats would make wonderful "starter" pets, the accuracy leaves a little something to be desired.
Rats are listed as the number five option, behind ants, geckos, guppies, and hermit crabs. The article starts off with a, "No, really," as an attempt to sway those prejudiced against rats.
It continues, "The undiscovered pet for children, rats are smart, affectionate, social animals that are often compared to small dogs in intelligence and attachment -- they've been known to snuggle with their owners," all of which is true.
Then the problems start: "These four-legged friends live three to five years, are nocturnal and love the company of other rats." Three points, and one of them is wrong. Rats, sadly, live 2 to 3 years (closer to two, in most cases). Four year old rats are few and far between, and I've only heard of one rat that lived passed five (in all honesty, the person claimed their rat lived to be seven, but I, personally, find that really difficult to believe.). The second and third points are valid, as is the fourth point in the next sentence: "But unless you want a posse of little ones, keep the males and females separate," which kind of goes without saying. It would have been more useful to state how quickly you can go from having two to having scores: Rats can reproduce at five weeks, and gestation is three weeks.
My next nit-picky point is the Post's stating, "An entire setup -- cage and all -- will cost about $50 or $60." I suppose that's true, but that would be a pretty small cage--certainly not enough for two rats (rats, as stated by the Post, are very social animals and you should get at least two, so that they may keep each other company).
The article concludes, "Jason G****** at the W******* Pet Center in Bethesda (301-ABC-WXYZ) suggests providing plenty of toys like blocks of wood, cardboard, coconut shells and ropes for chewing -- rats' teeth grow steadily like fingernails," which is also true. Rats like toys and their teeth grow 24/7.
Obviously, this was just a capsule introduction to rats as pets, but I shudder to think what might happen should someone go into rat ownership without a few other important details...such as veterinary care and cost.
Without a doubt, vet bills are our greatest expense with rats. Rats are considered exotics, and a vet who treats exotics is, first, hard to find, and second, expensive as all hell. Vet visits are frequent, as are vet bills of over one-hundred dollars.
I would also have loved to have seen rat care books, preferably by Debbie Ducommun. A better rats-as-pets article can be found here.
Posted by Publius at October 10, 2004 03:18 PM