Not really a pet :) We have named her fatty ratty.

[louisbs]

Hi all,

I know there are lots of ratty lovers here, so here is a picture of a wild rat that regularly feasts on the dropped bird food & bread i put out for the birds lol :)

http://i1123.photobucket.com/albums/l547/louisbs/Animals/P1030315.jpg
Getting ready to run :)

http://i1123.photobucket.com/albums/l547/louisbs/Animals/P1030327.jpg
Peeeekaboo :) I was stood near that tunnel in silence. Took this today :D

Enjoy!

Louis

[Silver]

Beautiful Pictures

Silver xxx

[shazzy]

Those pics are great! She's very pretty

[Biscuit]

Wow, those are some great pics. It looks so funny.

[Erin Loves Dwarf Hamsters]

I have been loving following Fatty Ratty on FB and she/he is absolutely gorgeous! Really lovely photos! :D

[Sparkle]

Really great photographs.

[louisbs]

http://i1123.photobucket.com/albums/l547/louisbs/Animals/P1030228.jpg

nom nom nom
I took this a couple of weeks ago.. little bit blurry but had to be quick :)

[Biscuit]

What a lucky rat. :) Looks tasty (for the rat,not me)

[cathface]

haha what a cutie! I love rats (except sewer rats, they kind of scare me :( )

[louisbs]

If theres anyone looking at this thread thinking "Ewww vermin" & "think of the disease it carries" because its a wild brown rat.

Please do you own research and do not listen to the pest control companies, who are in it just to make money, the more they scare people, the more money they make.

Yes I do feed her :) lol

[Hamtastic]

Gorgeous ratty! The photo of her carrying that giant rectangular waffle of something looks very funny :) She must have been thinking "JACKPOT!!!"

[louisbs]

Gorgeous ratty! The photo of her carrying that giant rectangular waffle of something looks very funny :) She must have been thinking "JACKPOT!!!"

I watched her for a good 15 minutes taking it around the garden, there are tunnels dug to next doors garden so i don't know where she could be taking it :)
I could see the determination in her eyes. Getting round the pond was amusing to watch.

[fluffymunchkins]

N'awww I love rattys, wild or not :) Looks like shes thriving with your help, do you know if theres any others living by you? x

[Womblehands]

Bless, I wonder if there is a litter there too..

[louisbs]

I have seen this one.. and on one occasion I did see two young ones.

http://i1123.photobucket.com/albums/l547/louisbs/Animals/rat.jpg
^^^ Young one i think. Took this last month :) Don't know if it could be my current one all grown up.

But never more than 2 at a time.

I love watching them.

[Womblehands]

I would be tempted to put some toys in the garden for them to play with..
Do they get water from somewhere?

[louisbs]

http://i1123.photobucket.com/albums/l547/louisbs/Animals/P1070197.jpg

Took this in April this year.. same one? who knows lol

[gutterglitterxx]

Aw, pretty rat. Rats don't bother me at all. Plus I've heard they make awesome pets!

[louisbs]

They never come out that far from the corner.. unless their is something tempting them, so i doubt toys would get touched to be honest.

There are a few ponds around and people feed the wildlife around here.. So i dont think water will be a problem :)

[louisbs]

N'awww I love rattys, wild or not :) Looks like shes thriving with your help, do you know if theres any others living by you? x

Quite possibly :) There are train tracks and a green area just down the road from me. The green area spans about a 1/4 mile length alongside the train tracks. I've seen wabbits down there.

[snaisby]

haha what a cutie! I love rats (except sewer rats, they kind of scare me :( )

'Sewer rats' are the exact same species as the cutie in the pictures... same species as pet rats too ;) just living in a different place lol.

Stunning pics, what a lovely agouti girly!

[billybobbs]

She is gorgeous!!! They are amazing pics ;)

[louisbs]

My Wild Brown Rat - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOOlTWOedm4)

Hehe

http://i1123.photobucket.com/albums/l547/louisbs/Animals/P1030380.jpg

[Kissa]

She does look very pretty :)

(I didn't realise that wild rats supposedly carried diseases, I thought the issue was if mice or rats get on your food and defecate on it... you don't want poo on food, whether it's from a "healthy" pet or a "diseased" wild animal.)

[Hammymad]

Awwww ses gorgeous,I love ratties :) xx

[louisbs]

She does look very pretty :)

(I didn't realise that wild rats supposedly carried diseases, I thought the issue was if mice or rats get on your food and defecate on it... you don't want poo on food, whether it's from a "healthy" pet or a "diseased" wild animal.)

Yeah, all wild animals can carry disease. Its because they have long tails that they get picked on :(

[mangoandmimi]

I actually love her.. she looks so proud of herself with her food :mad:
And her talons in the very last picture..hehe

[Hope]

She is actually beautiful, its so sad that the y have such a bad reputation.

[louisbs]

We also have a mouse, I have seen it once!
I know its their somewhere because we have small mouse size holes appear at the back of the garden every night lol, i think they are living under a shed.

[gutterglitterxx]

I almost got a couple of rats before I fell in love with Cheeto (and Roxy... And Jazz.) My dad was freaking out at the thought. It was sort of funny to see a big bad man afraid of a rat.

[racinghamster]

She`s lovely. :) Wild rats and mice need to be accepted more by the public instead of screaming and calling the pest controllers in. I`ve had wild mice under my kitchen sink for years now. They come and go. I put food down and it`s eaten every night! :mad: My mother has seen a little brown mouse, we actually think it`s a bank vole or a field vole as it has a shorter tail than a house mouse or other species of mouse. It comes in via a small pipe hole in the side of the house where an old pipe used to be and then goes under the cement slabs next to the house! I suspect that`s where they live and they come in because they know the food stash has been left down for them!

Just recently, I`ve had a wild grey squirrel and a wild rabbit living in my garden! I have birds feeders so I imagine all-sorts are attracted by the seed and the peanuts. I love having them around. Rats don`t bother anyone unless they take over a house and it`s contents! But that`s because they are allowed in and the owners are paranoid. Which is understandable if you have small children or other pets.

The only things I don`t particularly like in the house are spiders. But even then, I try to capture them in a jar and get them back outside where they belong! :mad:

[Gamina]

I think they are beautiful but I wouldn't ever encourage them in my home or garden because of my own boys. Before I took Crashdown in he and his siblings lived in a rat shed out in the garden. A wild rat got into the shed and bit the foot off one of the babies and half of Crashdown's tail off. He shall forever be a stumpy tail :) and while he lives a happy life despite his stump I wouldn't want to put anyone at risk, however small a risk it may be.

We have foxes, rats, mice, frogs, rabbits, squirrels in our London garden despite our house pretty much backing onto the motor way. They all live in the green line in between our homes and the road.

In terms of disease and the animals I am not put off but I know it can be a real risk in some environments. Lee my OH works in an environment with rats and mice carrying Leptospirosis or Viles. He has to carry a card that says he works in an environment with animals that carry the disease for if he is ever taken into hospital. They have tests run on there work staff room kitchen facilities quite often and people have suffered and died from the illness in the past contracted through the animals urine contaminating the workplace. While the risk is small and well managed I do not think I would like to encourage the possible spread in my own kitchen.

[louisbs]

Yep I know there is a risk. I would take exception to my love of all wild things if they were effecting our lives.
But our rat is just enjoying life, living alongside us. Its scared of us and I have never seen it come out further than the corner other than to steal some bread. I wont stop feeding the birds, so shes happy :)

[p_anda]

I have to say I'm jealous. :) I have to be content with watching the ones in the park stealing from the bird feeder, where they are in competition with squirrels. It's unlikely that she's alone, so you might get to see some rat babies when they leave the burrow!

The whole thing about rats and disease stems from medieval times, when in fact it was an entirely different species of rats, called the 'black' or 'ship' rat who spread diseases. The one in the garden is a brown or Norway rat, though they have a lot of names. So to clarify, the black rat is Rattus Rattus, the brown rat is Rattus Norvegicus. Brown rats out competed black rats a few hundred years ago, and now they are a lot more common. Black rats are still common in tropical climates, which the brown rat doesn't like. They way rats can spread disease, or in fact any rodent, is through their parasites, urine or droppings. The dust from droppings or urine is inhaled and thus airborne diseases such as the plague [which is very uncommon nowadays] Fleas and ticks require closer contact, and that's how for example, Lyme disease spreads. The flea sucks the blood of the infected animal and it may be transferred onto a human by fabrics in the house or by simply touching the rat. Have to say though, all this stems from poor hygiene and leaving food unprotected in the house, so it is in fact the person's own fault if they end up with a serious rat infestation. The rats are only exploiting the resources that you leave them with, which you can't blame them for. Keeping your house clean, holes blocked up, and your food put away will stop any visitors and keep them where they belong, in the wild. As our hygiene improved, the numbers of rodents in our houses has declined. You can still get the occasional mouse etc. but they are hardly going to be a problem. Another reason why people end up with diseases is because they are disturbing the habitat of a rodent that is unwilling to move. I.e if you decide to pull down a bit of forest and build a house, you are bound to end up with the rodents that lived there.

Having said that, catching diseases from rats is a very rare occurrence. Also it's usually the fleas and ticks that carry the diseases and not the animals themselves. The fleas infect the animals in the first place. You have just as much of a chance of picking up a flea or a tick from your dog/cat.

[racinghamster]

Well said P_anda.

[louisbs]

Thank you P_anda.. Another person backing up what i think :D

[Gamina]

Oh I'm not debating what anyone has said as a rat keeper myself I am just saying for the sake of my beautiful boys, one of whom has a nasty injury from a wild rat, I would not encourage the ones I get in my garden but thats a personal choice and not my attitude to wild rats... Hell half the things spread by wild animals aren't transmittable to humans but having one stumpy infected tail was enough for me!! Tho it does give him the cutest little waddle he can't take climbing like others lol

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v219/ncfc309/DSC00729.jpg


A lot of the illnesses spread that are checked for from my partners work are through urine traces although it is in noway the same scale as rats in the home. They are endemic in his workplace, they could never get rid of them they just have to ensure staff safety in areas where food is consumed as it was a frequent occurrence before they did the checks. Part of the issues with his work are also the links with the rats having such close access to the sewers. Most wild rats have like a 10% chance of carrying Weils but its about 45% o the poor little mites in the underground.

[p_anda]

Gamina it's understandable that you don't want to encourage rats to live near your house, it can be a risk for people with pets that are kept permanently outside, for e.g. rabbits or just sheds, even wild rats are very nosy under the cover of darkness...but if your house is secure in terms of there not being any small holes/gaps, then it shouldn't be a problem. Food only placed outside should keep rats outside too, but you couldn't blame a rat that came wandering into your conservatory if you've left food on the table overnight, as they are opportunistic feeders.

Though to be honest, where I live, I'd be more concerned of a fox coming into my house, the ones around here are very confident around humans...too confident. There hundreds around here that will just walk into a house at night if the door is open, no hesitation! Not even our tiny yappy dog deters it. :rolleyes:

[Gamina]

They come right up to our back door lol the foxes, rats and one summer a squirrel popped in. Much hilarity ensued... but I wouldn't put it past the foxes especially. They have been known to walk along the fence to the house and look in the window at whats on the box.

[racinghamster]

I have to say I wouldn`t fancy having urban foxes around here. It`s bad enough chasing the cats away from my garden never mind foxes! I`m not into predation animals. I much prefer the small and furry rodents! And the feathered kind of course!

[Gamina]

We also have a pair of Jays here who you regularly see feasting on mice. They are beautiful birds but I dislike findings their left overs on my fence posts :(

[p_anda]

I have to say I wouldn`t fancy having urban foxes around here. It`s bad enough chasing the cats away from my garden never mind foxes! I`m not into predation animals. I much prefer the small and furry rodents! And the feathered kind of course!

You don't wanna know what fox pee/poo smells like :mad: I've never smelled anything so vile in my life...my boyfriend's mum has tried pretty much everything from bleach to lavender plants to get rid of the smell, no luck! And it's not like the source of smell is obvious, but I think it can only be excrement. Anyone got any tips?

[gutterglitterxx]

My parents had a mouse a few years back. I had noticed that a couple items in the kitchen looked like they had been nibbled. I told my parents I thought they had a critter and they basically dismissed me as crazy. But one night my mother heard noise in the kitchen, went out there, and sure enough saw a small brown mouse on top of the stove trying to get into a loaf of bread. As soon as she turned the light on, the mouse ran down into one of the burners so it was apparently living in or under the stove somewhere! My dad put a couple of traps out (humane ones by request of me!) but the mouse must have lost interest because we never saw it or evidence of it again.

[louisbs]

New baby!! :D
Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

http://i1123.photobucket.com/albums/l547/louisbs/Animals/P1030411.jpg

http://i1123.photobucket.com/albums/l547/louisbs/Animals/P1030413.jpg

http://i1123.photobucket.com/albums/l547/louisbs/Animals/P1030412.jpg

[Biscuit]

Awww. So cute! Looks like they like the bread. Great pics too. :) xxx

[louisbs]

They LOVE the bread lol
The little guy was out with his mum yesterday.. and hes learnt very quickly how to wall climb.

[Biscuit]

Clever Ratty! And awww. Mummy and baby. Cool if you could get some pics of them together. :) xxx

[louisbs]

The 1st pic on the new ones i got yesterday... but my battery was low :(
Otherwise I would of.

[Biscuit]

Oh well. Those pics are still amazing! :) xxx

[louisbs]

http://i1123.photobucket.com/albums/l547/louisbs/Animals/P1030474.jpg
Squeeeeeeeeeeee

[p_anda]

Those baby pictures are mega cute. :) I wonder how many kittens she has?

[louisbs]

I've not seen many that young which is very suprising to me to be honest.
Maybe they have worked out having 1 pup is more likely to survive than having 10.. i hope thats the case! lol
I love them, but at the same time i dont want to be overrun and they end up being a problem. But so far they run if they sense anything! Even a landing pigeon.

[Bright_moon]

They're lovely photos Louis, the baby ratty is so squeeeeeable!

Two of my former ratties shared the names of your Syrians (Honey and Pixie). :D

[blade100]

My hearts just melted, isn't she so pretty and her baby's.
Can I come and live in your garden??
Do you eat chicken? If you do place the carcass in there corner, they will nom it up bones included plus the babies will appreciate it given they need plenty of protein while young.
I'd also throw them some carrots and broccoli raw.

I absolutely love rats, I've owned over 40 in the past and now have 10 squishy lads.