RAT and MICE Health - Tips on Medications and Neutering

Just like cats and dogs, rats and mice need regular medication and the occasional visit to the vet. As always, prevention is best, and this article gives you some tips and advice to help your pet mouse or rat live longer and healthier and be the best companion for you.

A female pet mouse standing in hand. It's an adult, but it's smaller than a pet mice usually are, because it's bred to be small.
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Rats and mice need worming three to four times a year. They also may need spraying to keep mites away. However, this can be done cheaply if you purchase your products from your local pet store owner and you buy a generic brand. There are vitamin supplements that can be added to their water too. Most of these products can be purchased for approximately $10 each and are well worth keeping just in case your pet becomes ill. By administering vitamin syrup or worming, for example, you may be able to save your pet's life or at least prevent if from getting very ill.

Cages and toys should be sprayed for mites at least once a week when they are cleaned. By keeping cages and toys clean, you will provide a much healthier environment. I always soaked toys and bowls in hot water and disinfectant; they were then rinsed thoroughly. They never went straight back in the cages, however. I always had two or three sets of everything. That way items could dry properly and there was little risk of the mice and rats becoming ill from the disinfectant I used.

Both rats and mice have a fantastic sense of smell and will benefit from the use of essential oils. These oils will aid with healing wounds and regulating behaviour. However, as with dogs and other pets, you will have to dilute it and read the instructions carefully. If the male mice were fighting, I used to apply a tea tree cream. It has great healing qualities and is so pungent that the other mice would live the victim alone. As male mice tend gang up on just one, the use of this cream allowed the poor thing to recover and heal its wounds.

Get professional advice from your health care expert about which oils would be best for your pet. There are also some great websites available that can offer advice about which oils to use, dosage rates and much more.

You can desex rats but not mice; they're just too small. Desexing male rats is much simpler and painless than desexing females. However, the easiest and cheapest option is to keep separate cages for your males and females or just keep one gender.

You shouldn't breed your females too young as this may stunt their growth and cause problems later on. Females will need to be rested for months between litters as over breeding will cause health problems. Proper diet is also essential for lactating females and I have covered it in another article.

Rats are not as territorial as mice and we mix rats from different litters together all the time and we have never had any problems with one rat accepting another, in fact, they welcome the company after a brief investigation. I have seen females grooming small young that are not their own in both mice and rats too. Both species seem to have a very community spirited idea to caring for the welfare of their young.

If you are concerned about introducing a new animal to your existing ones, do it in neutral territory like your bathroom; clean the cage thoroughly and then give them fresh food. Put both animals back in the cage at the same time. They will be so busy running around investigating the new food and new bedding they won't bother with each other.

If these animals do start fighting, there is not much you can do but separate them in different cages.

By Sue Day Sue Day has worked in the pet industry for many years. Now a full time dog trainer, Sue has put together a website of over 50 pages to share her knowledge and experiences of pet care. Article Source:  EzineArticles

The Top Three PET RAT Training Mistakes

It can be very rewarding to train your pet rats to do tricks and learn obstacle courses. Since they tend to be highly intelligent creatures, rats can actually learn a lot (and get bored if they have nothing to do).

A common hooded fancy rat (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Furthermore, because they're people-pleasers, rats enjoy the challenge of striving for your reward and praise.

However, before you begin training, you may be interested to know the main pitfalls of pet rat training. That way, you can get started on the right foot and make the most of training time. Here are the top three mistakes that novice rat-trainers will often make:

1. Neglecting to create a stimulating living environment for their rats. 

Sometimes trainers make the mistake of thinking that their ratties' living environment doesn't need to be interesting or fun to be in. They seem to think that an hour of play time or training time is enough to stimulate their little minds. 

This is untrue. 

Rats are constantly problem-solving, 24/7. Giving them a stimulating and challenging living environment will ensure that their minds stay sharp for learning tricks.

- Buy or build a large caged enclosure complete with shelves, ramps, ladders, cubby holes, bins, hammocks, exercise wheels, tunnels, hidey holes, baskets and ropes strung across.

- Occasionally, treat them to a game of "hide n' seek" with sunflower seeds. Hide them in hard-to-reach places so they really have to think hard about how to get to them.

- Be sure to adjust and rearrange the furniture and food locations. Always keep 'em guessing.

- Make playtime games challenging as well with swimming pools, sand boxes and tunnel-mazes.

2. Being too "results oriented" about training. 

One major pitfall a rat owner can fall into is to be too demanding about what is to be accomplished during training. This approach to rat-training will only end in frustration and neglect. 

Never forget that training is just an extension of play time and that repetition, along with positive reinforcement, is the key to success.

3. Forgetting to reinforce old tricks.

As the saying goes "If you don't use it, you lose it." The first-time rat trainer will often teach his rats a few basic tricks, move on to other ones for several weeks, only to discover that his rats have forgotten the first tricks! 

Just because a rat learns a trick, it does not mean that the little guy will remember it later. Reinforcement is everything. This is why, when teaching a rat to run an obstacle course, the trainer must tack a new obstacle onto the one(s) that were previously learned. Otherwise, the rat will fail to remember the first obstacles learned.

So, remember: keep their lives full of challenges at all times; try to be patient and not to get too attached to results and accomplishments; and don't take it for granted that they will remember those first tricks they learned... because they won't. Repeat and reinforce their learning at all times!

Knowing about these three major pitfalls will go a long way in helping you to make the most of your rats' intelligences and abilities; and as long as you are together, you will look forward to training time every single day.

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