Pet Forum / Mammals / Rats / February 2005

Can anybody tell me are fancy rats lactose intolerant? I was watching a film
the other day about the wild rats in India, where they are given a huge dish
of it every day. Does anybody know?
John

Recently reading Lewis Thomas's _The Lives of a Cell_ (wonderful,
wonderful book) and ran across this as I perused some more about him
on the 'net, which I thought might of interest to some here:  
http://www.philosophy-religion.org/handouts/uncertainty.htm

Hope you are all well tonight.
Just thought I would share this link with you that my sister has just sent
me - had me in tears! :o( It's words are slightly different from the
original Rainbow Bridge poem but it has animation and music! Very beautiful

I have been lurking and reading all of the posts in the group.  I have
to say, there are alot of very helpful, caring people here.  I am
owned by 2 female rats, Molly and Lucy.  My girls are going to be 3
this June.  They have been such a pleasure to have and share our lives

My invalid rat, Tallulah, has developed a swollen toe on her right
forefoot. It doesn't seem to be painful -- she takes no notice when I
touch it -- but the digit is noticeably larger and pinker than its
neighbours. I assume she has simply caught the nail on something and

I'm pretty sure this is a good improvement. Natalie and Spice didn't
seem so interested in eachother after grooming eachother in the tub
anymore so I decided to take it a step up (after doing this for a week)
to introduce on the floor of my room. Natalie attatcked Spice twice and

Hi All, Does anyone have suggestions for curing a gay rat? I know that
questions not politicaly correct but he (aka Steve) insists on trying to
hump his brother (aka Dave) who's getting pretty upset and traumatised by
his advances! Help please as they're not getting on, it only ...

after trying hitting her with a stream of water from a water bottle about 8
zillion times. i decided to try another approach to stop the agonizing sound of
rats teeth versus metal cage. now let me tell you that my fine pair of females
have multiple hunks of chewing goodness inside ...

*sigh* Why is it that with ratties there never seems to be much time between
losses :-( I hate it :-(
My big boy Uly is 17 months old and has just gone downhill the last day or
so. He is not eating (totally out of character) and not drinking too much.

Has anyone got any tips to help my girl ruby lose some weight?
She was just a squishy rat for a while, but now she's getting to be plain
old FAT.
Nothing varies in terms of treats, food or run-around time between her and

Thanks for the response to my post - Very kind of you all :-)
Took Uly to the vets tonight, maybe it's just me but I think my vet finds
rats quite hard to diagnose! He is a great vet though, and has rats of his
own so he is always good with the boys.

I got a new rat who is a year old, and he looks very happy, eats well, but
he makes this sound like a tennis ball being hit, but very softer of
course.........
Anyone have any ideas what the noise means?

The last time I visited this group it was loaded with spam and only a
half dozen messages from rat folks posted 3 weeks apart. Looks like
things have picked up a bit.
I'm reading this group via giganews, the articles go back more than a

I have a 9 week old black male, that is huge, with the biggest back paws
I've seen before in rats. I was wondering, in some animals you can tell if
they are going to be bigger or smaller by certain physical characteristics.
(most of the time anyway), and I was wondering if you could ...

Hey guys sorry I haven't been here in ages. I need some rat
introduction help!
Okay, I went and read this whole section about introducing rats. The
new baby rat (I know I only have one baby but I had to save her from