Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I got 3 pairs over the weekend and some are a fraid of me and some don't care, but one female seems to be so interested in anything I do with their cage. Like as soon as i take the lid off the cage, she's on her little house thing and id sniffing the air and is just checking me out. lol
But was wonderin if anyone has any ideas to kinda tame/calm these rodents down some? They are more feral than your "typical" rats.
here's 2 of the 3 pairs...

I've got natal rats, and I've pretty much given up on trying to tame them. I tried with the original trio and the one female is a nasty evil biter. She chases my hand and attacks whenever I go in the tank for anything.

The first couple litters I tried handling from birth on a daily basis so they would be more socialized, and it worked to a limited extent, they don't seem to be as aggressive but they still do NOT like to be handled. They're NOTHING like sweet, docile domestic rats.

Once they reached hopper stage they would refuse any further handling and leap away, no matter the height or danger.

I keep them now solely as feeders.

Wait, wait, wait! Are those also called multimammate mice?
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Kadee Sedtal

home of old lady Lucy (boxer/lab/garbage disposal), pretty girl Fancy (beagle), the rats-Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Pachebel, Fillmore, Norbert, and baby Franz, the mice- Vivaldi, Brahms, Schubert, Bartok, Rasputin, Johann, Chaminade, Dorothy, Glenda, Em, and baby Rosa, and the wonderful winter white dwarf hamster- Feather
"I wish I had a dollar for every time I spent a dollar, because then, yahoo! I'd have all my money back." -Jack Handey

That's one of the many names for 'em....

Neato! I was on another group a while back and everyone was talking about how neat multimammate mice are, and I had never heard of them in the U.S. Maybe one of these days hubby will let me get some.
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Kadee Sedtal

home of old lady Lucy (boxer/lab/garbage disposal), pretty girl Fancy (beagle), the rats-Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Pachebel, Fillmore, Norbert, and baby Franz, the mice- Vivaldi, Brahms, Schubert, Bartok, Rasputin, Johann, Chaminade, Dorothy, Glenda, Em, and baby Rosa, and the wonderful winter white dwarf hamster- Feather
"I wish I had a dollar for every time I spent a dollar, because then, yahoo! I'd have all my money back." -Jack Handey

I did a search for them & found only one care sheet out there for them
http://goto.glocalnet.net/natal/care.htm

There must not be many people keeping them- yet.
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PHRatz

Info on the net is pretty scarce, but more and more people are breeding them as they make good feeders for snakes, especially ball pythons.

Ball pythons are notoriously finicky eaters and natal rats are one of their natural prey animals.

They are still quite feral and don't like being handled. Some bite a lot. Not just when cornered or scared, but ALL the time. So they don't really make very good pets. I've heard of people in the UK with much more tame natal rats, but the strains here in the US seem to be all very hard to handle and prone to bite.
Since the CDC and FDA have banned any further imports of any African rodents, we are pretty much stuck with what is in the country already. They are almost exclusively bred for feeders so not much effort is being put into taming them or breeding for temperament.

There's a forum dedicated to them at www.asfrats.info