How to Prepare Your Family for a Pet Rat

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By natylee
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Prepare Your Family for a Pet Rat

Rats make wonderful pets, but its important that everyone, from your children to your other pets, is prepared on how to handle and care for them.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Step 1

First, educate yourself. Read about owners' experiences and tips online and purchase a rat book. This will tell you all you need to know about maintaining a rat's health and how to recognize when they are sick.
Step 2

Next, educate your kids about rats. Younger kids are going to find them especially fascinating so you also want to go over with them about good handling habits and make sure they understand that you should be with them whenever they want to hold their new pets.
Step 3

Your pets will be the hardest to prepare for a new addition, because they likely have no idea what will be going on until you bring them home. Make sure you don't try to introduce your rats to any pets until they are accustomed to and enjoy being handled by you. Even then, never leave your rat alone with any other animal. One quick second of not looking can be fatal if something goes wrong.

Tips & Warnings

Remember that bringing a rat home is meant to be fun for the whole family and that with patience and love, your rat will get accustomed to you. It just takes time.
It's very easy for children to accidentally kill rats simply because they often don't know their own strength and can get carried away while having fun. Make sure you supervise your children with your rats at all times.
Never pick a rat up by it's tail. It hurts them very much and though, they probably won't bite you, they will remember it and be hesitant to come to you.

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