Common Rats for Adoption

The most complete list anyone has published comes from AFRMA, the American Fancy Rat & Mouse Association. It is worth reading with its date attached: it ran in the club’s magazine in the summer of 2000. The reasons it gives are all about the household: people getting tired of the rats, children losing interest, unplanned litters, moving, allergies, school projects finishing, and complaints about smell or mess.[5] Nothing on that list is about the rat.

A quarter of a century later the modern version looks much the same. DFW Rat Rescue names “a new living situation, a new baby, or a new allergy” on its own surrender page. It confirms the accidental-litter route too, by keeping what it calls a maternity ward for pregnant or nursing does and their pups.[6] We are not going to invent a statistic here. Nobody publishes intake numbers for pet rats the way shelters publish them for dogs, so the honest statement is that the pattern is consistent and the counts do not exist.

That pattern is why adopting an adult rat carries so little risk to you. A dog surrendered for behaviour is a real category. A rat surrendered because a landlord said no is a rat with nothing wrong with it. Ask what changed in the owner’s life and you will usually get a straight, slightly embarrassed answer.

Most rehoming here is owner to owner, which is what the listings at the top of this page are. One route exists for no other pet species. RSPCA Australia lists rehoming groups that place rodents retired from research institutions, alongside shelters, rescues, rat clubs and breeders.[7] Those rats are usually young, usually handled daily, and usually placed in groups.

Start with the welfare position, which is not hedged. The UK RSPCA puts it this way. Rats “can get depressed and develop abnormal behaviour if they live on their own, even when they have lots of contact with people.” They should be kept in pairs or small same-sex groups.[10] RSPCA Australia agrees and adds that rats are not solitary animals and should always be kept in small groups of their own species.[4] Human company is not a substitute, and no amount of daily handling makes it one.

What makes rats unusual is that somebody tested what a cage mate actually means to them. In a study published in Science in 2011, researchers put a free rat in an arena with a cage mate trapped inside a restrainer. The free rats learned to open the restrainer and release the trapped rat. They did not open empty restrainers or ones containing an object. They kept opening it even when they were prevented from touching the freed rat afterwards, which rules out doing it just for company. And when the choice was a trapped cage mate or a second restrainer full of chocolate, the rats opened both and typically shared the chocolate.[11]

That study is about rats and other rats, and this page is not going to stretch it into a claim about how a rat feels about you. It does one job here: it is why splitting a bonded pair to make two adoptions out of one is a worse outcome than it looks on a listing page.

The rescues that publish policies have arrived at the same place. DFW Rat Rescue writes: “No rat should be kept alone. For this reason, we ask that you either adopt more than one or have a current rat at home of the same sex.”[12] Rattie Ratz will not split bonded groups at all.[13] If you are rehoming your own rats through Petmeetly, the same rule is worth applying: list them as a group and say so in the listing.

The practical news is good. Two rats are barely more work than one, they entertain each other, and a pair costs a little more to feed rather than twice as much. The one thing to avoid is a rat kept alone because you did not want the responsibility of two.

Rehomed rats usually settle in days. RSPCA Australia describes rats as intelligent, highly social, quick learners with excellent memories, and says they can form close bonds with their human carers.[15] Chewy’s medically reviewed guide adds that many domestic rats genuinely enjoy being held and petted.[3] There is no rat version of the three-day, three-week, three-month script people quote for rescue dogs, and no rat source uses one. Sit by the cage, let them come out to you, and hand over food. Most rats are climbing on you inside a week.

The part worth preparing for is the other end. Veterinary Times describes what tends to arrive in an aging rat, and none of it is sudden. Hind limb weakness from degeneration of the nerve roots, with a wide stance and stumbling, is reported in 75 to 90 percent of rats over 24 months.[2] Pituitary tumours, meaning growths on a gland at the base of the brain, are common in older rats of both sexes and can show as head tilt, circling or seizures.[2] Mammary tumours are common in older does and are mostly benign fibroadenomas, which are non-spreading lumps of gland and fibrous tissue, at 80 to 90 percent.[2] Chronic kidney disease is called probably the most common disease of aged rats, seen in as many as 75 percent of males.[2]

Read that list as a maintenance schedule rather than a warning. Most of it is slow, and most of it is manageable for a good while.

One kind of adoption deserves naming. A rat whose cage mates have all died is the hardest listing to place. It is also one of the best adoptions you can make, particularly if you already have an older rat of the same sex. Matching two seniors avoids handing a young rat a companion it will outlive by a year, and it gets both of them out of living alone. Our guinea pig adoption page covers the same problem in a species that lives roughly twice as long, if that suits your household better.