How to Raise an Orphaned Rat

If you are left with an orphaned rat, it is imperative you begin caring for it immediately. You may choose to search for a foster mother, or you may take on the task of hand-raising the rat. Read on for further details.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• Foster mother rat
• Box
• Felt
• Heat source
• Syringe
• Rubber feeding tube
• Eye-dropper
• Rag
• Weather thermometer
• Soy-based baby formula
• Baby cereal
• Rodent food
• Cotton balls
• Food and water dishes

1. Search for a nursing rat to serve as a foster mother for your orphaned rat. Use one of your own rats or contact local breeders, pet-stores or other people you know who might have mother rats. As long as your orphan is about the same age as the foster rat's own litter, she should adopt it quite readily.
2. Raise your orphaned rat by hand if you cannot find a nursing mother. Start by getting a small box with sides at least 6 inches high and lining it with felt.
3. Warm the orphaned rat using a hot-water bottle, heat lamp or heating pad. Place a small weather thermometer near the heat source and keep the temperature around 100 to 102 degrees.
4. Feed your orphaned rat human baby soy-based formula. Warm the water to roughly 105 degrees and mix in the formula powder. Allow the formula mixture to cool to 100 degrees.
5. Feed the rat using a syringe with a small rubber feeding tube attached, a small eye-dropper or a piece of rag. Feed the rat only 5 percent of its body weight per feeding, and feed it every two to three hours for the first week and every four hours the second week.
6. Help your infant rat go to the bathroom by gently rubbing its genital area with a damp cotton ball for several minutes before and after every meal.
7. Wash your infant rat regularly by massaging it with a damp cotton ball and drying it thoroughly. This also stimulates the rat's circulation.
8. Start weaning your rat at one week. Mix baby formula and cereal to a soupy consistency and try having the baby rat slurp it from your finger. Around two weeks, start providing rodent food soaked in water along with the formula and cereal mixture, and start offering fewer formula-only feedings. Your rat should be ready to be totally weaned from nursing around four weeks.
9. Introduce your orphaned rat into a cage if it is healthy and developing regularly at four weeks. Make sure it is safe and has plenty of food and water available.

Tips & Warnings

• Contact your veterinarian with any questions or concerns regarding raising an orphaned rat.
• Sterilize all feeding equipment daily and keep the rat and its living area clean.
• If raising an orphaned wild rat, decide if you plan on keeping it as a pet or releasing it into the wild. If releasing it, handle it as little as possible so it does not bond to you.
• Start gradually reducing the temperature of the rat's environment at two weeks.
• Get a gram scale to weigh your baby rat so you know you are feeding it the recommended amount.
• Try to have the nursing rat lick or suck the formula. Dropping it into the rat's mouth can cause it to swallow too much air, which can kill an infant rat.
• Do not allow the temperature of the rat's environment to get above 102 degrees.
• If using a heating pad to warm the orphaned rat, be sure the heating pad is set on its lowest setting, and confine it to only one section of the box so the rat can get away from the heat if it needs to.