Posts Tagged mischief

One Rat or Two?

“Should I get one rat, or two?”

That’s a question I hear asked very often, and, unlike most pet questions, it’s got an easy answer. Get two! Or, better yet, three, or as many rats as you have the time, space, and money to support! Rats are gregarious animals and need the company of their own kind in order to be happy. In fact, most good rat breeders require that babies be adopted in pairs.

In the wild, rats live in groups of hundreds. They are social animals that do not leave their colonies at adulthood, but simply expand their foraging radius and the size of their colony’s nesting area as the colony expands. Activities like play and social grooming help rats’ brains to develop. Studies have shown that social grooming is so important to rats that baby rats raised by a mother that does not lick and groom them grow up to be unfriendly and less intelligent than rats raised by a mother who is attentive.

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