Pet rat equipment reccomendations?

Question

I would greatly appreciate it if a pet rat owner could help me with the following items. I would appreciate links about items and prices.

Two Rats - How much?
A cage big enough for two females.
Water Bottle.
Food Dish
Hides
Homemade toys or store bought, or any ideas.

Bedding
Food
Anything else

How much would it cost for a vet to
Remove a tumor
Give a basic exam
Help a respitory infection
Put him to sleep

Answer 1

How much: It depends on what type of rats you are looking for. A rat from a breeder will be more expensive but possibly healthier than a store bought rat. I bought all my rats from pet stores to rescue them from the jaws of a snake. My girl rats from Petsmart cost $6.99 each and my males from Petco cost about the same.

Cage: I bought a Chinchilla cage with a wheel for about $55.00 and had 2 females in it. It was plenty big enough and they loved the wheel. Very important...you have to make sure that the wires of the cage are not too big to have their feet slip through or big enough where they could get stuck.

Water bottle: I used a standard pet water bottle and changed their water everyday.

Food dish: I used a small plastic food dish from a pet store.

Hides: I am not sure what you mean by this although I did used to give them the BIG heavy duty cardboard rolls to sleep in, or a small box turned upside down with a "door" cut out.

Toys: My rats used to LOVE the plastic cat balls with the bells. They would chase them around the house for hours!

Bedding: I used the recycled paper bedding. DO NOT use pine shavings as rats are very prone to respiratory infections and this type of bedding is too dusty.

Food: I bought the rat pellets from the pet store. I also fed fresh fruits and veggies occasionally as well as an occasional table scrap. The loved pork chop bones!

Costs:

Remove a tumor: I had a female that developed a mammary tumor although she was already 2 1/2 so I didn't have surgery. She lived to be over 3 so I don't know if it was old age or the tumor that killed her. Rats can live very happily with tumors I was told by my vet.

Give a basic exam: Whatever your vet charges for a small animal wellness exam. Probably somewhere around $35.00.

Help a respiratory infection: I had 3 males in the same cage and brought home a 4th. I kept the 4th quarantined for 2 weeks until I thought it was safe to put them together. The day after I put them together the new young rat (Ozzy) got sick. He died the next day. Then ALL of my boys started sneezing. I hauled them all to the vet and $168.00 later for three exams and 2 different medications over 10 days all was well. But trying to give 3 otherwise strong healthy rats medication twice a day was a real challenge, I'll tell you! I had to wrap them in a towel because they would push the eye dropper away with their little paws.

Euthanisia: I had to put one rat down that was very old and stopped eating. I believe it cost me $18.00 but that was just for the procedure, not cremation or anything else. I then buried him at home with his buddies that had gone to the rainbow bridge before him.

Check out this website for info on anything else:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fancy_rat

Answer 2

I used to have two female rats, and if I were you I would look for used wire dog crates, the ones that are all wire no plastic. That might seem way way to big now but your rats will grow into it. And when your rats grow up they will climb every where.
As for hides, make em, use the boxes from 12 packs of soda and you can make them a hamock too, from an old t shirt or baby blanket.
Get toys at the thrift stores, the ABC wooden blocks, or anything they could chew on.
Bedding is usualy about $10-$15 for the big bags of wood shavings. But if you get a dog crate, you can buy plastic sheets for under it and put newspaper on top of the plastic to absorb the smell and pee.
Food is pretty cheap cant remember how much it was but cheap. But I gave my rats alot of scraps.

Answer 3

! big snake lol