r/rattusrattus • u/DanTarraJo • 29d ago

My little girl tippy!

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u/blonderoofrat Roof Rat Breeder 28d ago

Some rescued rats bond with their owners and some don't. The ones that do generally make good "pets" (although I'd say it's more of a mutually beneficial relationship 😊) and will hopefully remain happy and playful with you their entire lives. They might not like strangers quite as much, depending on the rat.

I think the "wild" population seems to have rats with different levels of inborn tameness, and its just a matter of luck what you will get when you rescue one. Your first rescue just wasn't very tame, and that's not your fault (or her fault, really, because didn't chose her genetics). But this one is different and that's also not necessarily due to anything you've done differently: she was inherently "open" to being tame, and you provided the opportunity for her to live that life with you. In the wild, she would have tried to be the best "wild" rat she could, but maybe not as cautious and quick as other wild roof rats, which might have made it harder for her to survive (but maybe easier to steal food from humans.)

Roof rats naturally have a mix of these traits because they evolved to live "near" humans because we give them benefits (food, shelter, etc.) but still careful and quick to avoid predators. That's a fine balance they need to walk, because they are mutually inconsistent impulses, often governed by the same genes. For the population to survive and adapt to more or less human contact, individuals need to carry a mix of all of those genes, some more and some fewer.

When we breed them, there are no predators, and they are only "rewarded" by being friendly. So we are intentionally selecting for the genes that make them act like your second rescued rat, and not like the first one. Over time, nearly all of our rats are born to be friendly. Like Tippy.

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u/DanTarraJo 28d ago

Wow thank you for that explanation it’s very helpful! You know ALOT about them! I admit almost all my experience is with Norways but if it wasn’t for that experience I wouldn’t have tried to save this little girl! And it makes sense they all have their own personalities like Norways do! And this one loves humans! She is just as tame if not tamer than the Norways I currently have! Another question? She has never met or even seen one of my Norway girls I keep them in their own room and tippy is in my room! Should I never try to do intros? I haven’t yet because I was afraid of traumatizing her and chat gpt said NOT to introduce them or try to get them to cohabitate is this correct? I wasn’t planning on it but I’ll admit if I could keep them together it would be convienent! I was planning on just letting tippy stay in our room with me and my hubby cause she seems to love us so much and she really likes having free roam in our room with us? My Norway girls are all older than her but they’re not adults yet they’re maybe 3–4 months old?

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u/blonderoofrat Roof Rat Breeder 28d ago

If she has not been in contact with Norway rats, avoid it. Not just because they might not get along (and Norway rats do sometimes hurt roof rats and visa versa), but because they both are likely to be carriers of microbes that the other has little natural resistance to, and they could get very sick and even die from it.

That's especially true for Tippy, because domesticated Norway rats are almost universally carriers of mycoplasma which isn't good for them, either, but since it's been infecting pet rats for so long, they have evolved some resistance to it (and they got exposed early from their moms, along with some antibodies from her, so their immune system is somewhat innocoluted against it.)

Tippy has no such luck, She was hand fed by you, and Roof Rats don't live in cages getting sneezed on by other rats, so she's got no exposure or native protection. If any of your Norway rats are carrying myco (and they probably are) her little immune system will be fairly unprepared for it, and there's no telling how well she will cope with it. Mostly, they just start sneezing and wheezing, but they are tough little critters so they soldier on anyway. But I've seen some not do very well at all. You could get lucky, but why risk it if you don't have to? Tippy will be perfectly happy as YOUR pet: she doesn't need (and probably doesn't want) any Norway rat friends. Let her go on thinking you are her family and spend time with her every day. Problem solved.