I remember when I was young I had these wonderful rats! We must have bought them from the pet store, and they mated and had babies.
From the time the babies were young, we played with them. We had them out and loved them and they were tame.
Now, forward to many years later, when I go to the pet store and wonder if I can do this again, in a word, NO.
The rat babies at the pet store are treated roughly and they come to hate human contact because of this. I have been bitten so many times. I wondered why this was. I finally realized that the reason our early rats were so wonderful as pets, was because they were socialized. If you have rats that are socialized, then advertise them and sell them. You will be saving someone lots of trouble down the road. Other than that, you can look up rat fanciers and rat breeders to get one from them. Even though the rats at the pet store that sells snakes are cheaper than breeders they have not been socialized or cared for in a way that would make them suitable pets. Of course, there are always exceptions.
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I have adopted rats from a pet store, and while I had no problem socializing them, they all developed a form of pneumonia as they matured. The Vet told me it is epidemic in pet store rats that are factory raised for feeding to reptiles.
it's a gross assumption to say pet store rats are "handled roughly" and therefore will not make friendly pets. i worked for several years at a small pet store, where rats (other rodents, and birds as well) were bred for sale, and it was part of our job duties as employees to play with the animals, treat them with special care, and socialize them. obviously, the big chain pet stores are not all going to do this, but then, those places are usually not good for ANY animal. i wouldn't say, "Don't buy rats from a pet store", i would say, "Do your homework, and get to know a rat before buying it."
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