On asian rats, I do not believe they are any different in temperment than N. American species. On calling them ill tempered, well consider what gave them thier rep.
Most were wild caught, then they were treated badly, shipped around the world, stress from that and then from that stress the gut load of parasites which in the wild wouldn't normally be a problem becomes a serious heath risk.
Not being fed or given water for a long period will shrink thier appetite as will the stress and foreign envirionment.
It's now a rightfully pissed off and unhappy animal that has a better chance of expiring than surviving.

If an American species was put through that I believe it would be similar in temperment.
I think you'll find that captive bred asian snakes are much better to work with and very similar to anything found here.

I have a 9'+ blue beauty that was supposedly a long term captive. Yeh, right.
I think it was just a long shippment from the east. When I got him he was all of the problems above plus was jammed in a small box marked syringes (WTF?)
He was proptly named Demon as he came out of that box wanting to tear someone a new butt.
I didn't blame him. Today he is still very much his own snake but I can handle him without a problem.
He's less of a handfull than a texas rat I have thats half his size.
Mike.

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• vietnamese rat - johnthebaptist, Mon Sep 27 10:43:25 2010
• RE: vietnamese rat - JYohe, Mon Sep 27 16:51:19 2010
• RE: vietnamese rat - pinelandsghost, Mon Sep 27 23:09:51 2010
• RE: vietnamese rat - monklet, Tue Sep 28 11:31:27 2010
• RE: vietnamese rat - KevinM, Tue Sep 28 12:00:51 2010
• RE: vietnamese rat - pinelandsghost, Tue Sep 28 22:14:09 2010