Hey, I have a rat question: My brother had a male rat who seemed to want to mark his territory a lot - he piddled a bit here and there, and it was yucky. In your bit on your website about why male rats are good to adopt, you don't say anything about that, which led me to wonder if this is a common thing or if David's rat just had a continence problem! So what's the deal with that?
All rats do this. It's a way of letting you know you belong to them. As does your furniture, tableware, newspapers, and anything else you may at one point have thought belonged to you ;) Usually it's small droplets, not a giant puddle, unless you woke them up and took them out right away. Like us, they usually need to pee in the morning ;)
As r. said, all rats do this to some degree. Boys tend to do it more, although it may be that we just notice it more because their urine smells more. I do warn people about this; my rats are polite and will go to extremes to not make a puddle, but the little drops here and there are a rat thing.
The blue (not Junior Cowgirl, the other one) is going to Bella (who is arriving in about an hour). The black -- actually a charcoal -- stays here. *Everyone* wants them!
adorable! :) I always love having an armload or shirtload of rats :)
re: piddling boys, I don't remember if i asked you before, but my boys have started only (near as I can tell) peeing on their linoleum on the upper levels. Not, say, in the nice absorbant bedding all over the place in the bottom of the cage that would otherwise be helping to control the odor. I've taken to wiping down the linoleum every other day or so, but do you have any possible explanations or advice as to how i could either convince them to toilet in more convenient places or better control the odor? They started doing it after i changed the brand of bedding once, i think, but going back to the bedding they had before didn't seem to help. I'm afraid they may just be doing it out of habit now.
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Date: 2006-12-01 10:56 pm (UTC)re: piddling boys, I don't remember if i asked you before, but my boys have started only (near as I can tell) peeing on their linoleum on the upper levels. Not, say, in the nice absorbant bedding all over the place in the bottom of the cage that would otherwise be helping to control the odor. I've taken to wiping down the linoleum every other day or so, but do you have any possible explanations or advice as to how i could either convince them to toilet in more convenient places or better control the odor? They started doing it after i changed the brand of bedding once, i think, but going back to the bedding they had before didn't seem to help. I'm afraid they may just be doing it out of habit now.