Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Many times I've recommended that people don't keep wild rodents. There are lots of good reasons. Hanta virus, bubonic plague, mites, lice.....

So here I am, raising a wild tree rat (rattus rattus) that appeared in my dinning room.

Does anyone have a good recipe for rat formula. I don't have any rodent now, so I cant try to use a wet nurse.

DeMak

.

.

.
Link

I don't have a formula but see you found some info.
The sad fact is that you have a slim and none chance with a rat that young. If his eyes open tomorrow....he may be old enough to survive. But unless you want to foster him to one of your domestic rats he will likely wither away and die.
I know the rat site you linked to gives all that info, but they don't tell you that you are likely not gonna succeed in anything under 2-3 weeks old. And wild is just that....hyper, wild, stressed at your prescence. Debbie Ducommon ("The Rat Lady" will even say that chances are not good. That pet rat site is a little shy to show facts.
-----
Sonya

I'm not mean. You're just a sissy.
Happy Bunny

I'm even laughing at myself, how many times I've told others NOT to do this. I think I found it Thurs morning. It's still alive so far. Couldn't deal with it during the week so I feed it 1/2 almond milk and 1/2 half and half. Oh well, thats what I had in the house. Now I'm feeding baby formula. Seems to be frisky, we'll see....

DeMak

>>Many times I've recommended that people don't keep wild rodents. There are lots of good reasons. Hanta virus, bubonic plague, mites, lice.....
>>
>>So here I am, raising a wild tree rat (rattus rattus) that appeared in my dinning room.
>>
>>Does anyone have a good recipe for rat formula. I don't have any rodent now, so I cant try to use a wet nurse.
>>
>>DeMak
>>

Are you positive it's a black rat (ship/tree rat) and not a brown rat (sewer/domestic rat)? You can't really go by color of fur.

Hand rearing rats is not easy. I know I did do it with a litter of 4 orphaned black rats once (from pinkies) just for the fun of the experience. You are basically going to have to feed babies every 1-2 hours around the clock.... I.E. You will get NO sleep until they start weaning and eating some solid food blocks wherein you can cut back on the milk feedings. Best formula for rodents is GMR (Goat Milk Replacer) which can be found in the dog/puppy section of many petstores. Additionally, the rat, even hand reared will NOT turn out tame. Especially if it does turn out to be a ship rat...they may be fine more or less handleable for a while, but when they hit full maturity at about 3-4 months of age, the hormones kick in and they go nuts. You may find yourself regretting ever having raised it. Of the 4 I raised only 1 (Templeton) that was actually "nice" as an adult and could be handled, but she was also agoraphobic and would freak when outside of the cage as she could not handle the "open space". The others were aggressive. One of those 3 (Splinter) in particular would try her best to rip my throat out... I have quite a few scars from her.

.

-----
_____

PHWyvern

I'm pretty sure its a tree/ship rat. We have a lot of them around here, and very few sewer/domestics. I trap in the attic with a Havahart.

I'll try GMR (Goat Milk Replacer).

As soon as its old enough, it out on its own. I'm not going to keep it.

DeMak

The little bugger opened it's eyes today. Does anyone know how old that would make a tree rat pup?

DeMak

I found a litter of day old wild mice in my garage one day. Just out of curiosity I put them under one of my Swiss Webster females who had a new litter.

I have always believed that personality was a learned trait. These baby mice had been with their wild mother for less than a day. As they got older they got wilder and wilder. As fuzzys, they would actually try to bite me when I cleaned the cage. You can’t believe how wild they were. Nothing like their nest mates. I started with 6 of them and they all escaped before they were old enough to wean.
-----
Wade's Weptiles & Wodents

>>The little bugger opened it's eyes today. Does anyone know how old that would make a tree rat pup?
>>

just like domestic rats... eyes open at 2 weeks. Weaned at 4-5 weeks.
-----
_____

PHWyvern

>>just like domestic rats... eyes open at 2 weeks. Weaned at 4-5 weeks.
>>-----
>>_____
>>
>>PHWyvern

Thought so, this little bugger must have been almost a week old when I found him. I'm not sure if my terrier got the rest or if I have a wild tree rat colony in the house. The little buggers like to get up in a stuffed chair or sofa.

Thanx
DeMak

It was frisky and ate well this morning. It was dead when I got home this afternoon.

DeMak