Looking for some advice

[LadyCrow]

I very recently adquired a pet rat... he was barely 3 weeks when I bought him. He is a oretty light golden and he used to be the sweetest of things.
But since yesterday he has taken to biting... I am wondering if this sis something he will grow out of or if I am doing something wrong?
He has a quite spacy cage with a exercice wheel, pine bedding and I feed him with food for geribils and hamsters.

[Aevelyn_LL]

I've never owned a pet rat so I don't know if it's something that handling over time and discouraging him from doing it would fix, but those would be my courses of action if I did. That cat learned not to bite hard when playing after a bit.

[Blue Mist]

:-o!

Please don't take this the wrong way - I'm trying to give you advice as efficiently as I can.

First off - rats are very social. They should be in same sex pairs or neutered male/female, male/spayed female.

Pine bedding is bad. Pine bedding is bad for all small animals. Kiln dried pine is better than regular pine but it's still not the best. If you want to provide the best care possible for a creature that depends solely on you, pine is a no-no.

Hamster/gerbil food = not rat food. Also not the best choice.

Here -- www.goosemoose.com/rfc

They can help you out a lot better than I can.. just go in with an open mind and know that the people there are looking out for your pet. Many of them have made the same mistakes you have and have learned and now are able to help others. They should be able to help out with the biting issue.. you might want to give more info like how old he is now, is he neutered, where did you get him from, etc, etc.

Good luck. I hope I helped and I didn't offend too much.

[LadyCrow]

I didnt even know rats could be neutered O.O!
As for the food it says on the pack that it is a complete food for rodents of all kind.. it contains grains and different kind of cereals.
As for the pine bedding.. unfortunatly it was all they had at the pet shop I went... I'll go to another and se if I find any corn cob bedding.

Thanks for the advice

[Belladandy]

I asked my Mum about the little guy since she used to have pet rats.
She wants to know how hard is he bitting, if it's not too hard he could be just playing but she says if it's really hard that's a bad thing.

[Blue Mist]

LadyCrow said:

I didnt even know rats could be neutered O.O!
As for the food it says on the pack that it is a complete food for rodents of all kind.. it contains grains and different kind of cereals.
As for the pine bedding.. unfortunatly it was all they had at the pet shop I went... I'll go to another and se if I find any corn cob bedding.

Thanks for the advice

Yep. My Hutch is neutered. He had a bit of a hormonal issue - beating up other boys - so he got snipped.

Please check out the rats rule forum.. they can definitely help you with care and the biting issue. You should probably post in the "Rat Care Corner."

ratsrule.com/

Here's a website by the same lady who runs the forum.