One of our two rats, Chucky Cheese, died overnight. Poor Chucky. He was about 2 and a half years old. He came down with what we thought was pneumonia several weeks ago and he lost a lot of weight. He seemed to be doing better, slowly regaining weight, but apparently it wasn't enough. Rest in peace little rat buddy. I guess today's homeschool lesson is on death and mourning.
That leaves us with just Splinter. So what next? Should we try to slowly introduce a new friend for Splinter? Or does that not go well with rats? If we leave him solo, are there any activities we should provide him with so he doesn't get too bored?
I could read up on this sort of thing online, of course, but I always appreciate advice from friends and acquaintances more than that from strangers.
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See what your friends and neighbors have to say about this.
We have had mixed success with introducing new rats. We always did the initial introduction in the bath tub so nobody felt at home.
The thing we had the most success with was getting a second cage and letting them gradually get to know each other from a slight distance. We had some that we eventually felt comfortable enough to let them move in, but other times, we never combined them. Especially when we had an older rat with younger ones, we didn’t always feel they got along well enough.
A lot depends on the temperament of the rat you have. If he’s pretty easy going, you probably won’t have trouble. Just make sure that if you do add a rat that you thoroughly clean out the cage before putting them together for the first time.
As for things to keep the rat busy, we did a lot of different things. We had one rat that loved a hamster ball. She’d go all around the house in it. Our others didn’t really care for it though, so not a guarantee. We would also take empty cereal boxes and cut small holes in them and put them on top of or near the cage. When we let the rats out, they loved to climb up the cage and go “hide” in the boxes and peek out of the holes. Kleenex boxes also work well.
Thanks, Ryan!
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