Hairless rats?

[Pompeii]

I love hairless rats. Out of my 11, seven are hairless. Unfortunantly, three females I just took in appear to be pregnant.

[InfamousShadow]

I have recently aquired 2 hairless rats from a friend who manages a petstore. I adopted them because they were deemed unsellable. Everything was going fine until last night. " Sasha " has become very smart and somehow got out of the cage we have them in. We spent 30 minutes searching our house for her and finally found her. Does anyone have any ideas on how to keep them from getting out of the cage? We have them in a large fish tank with a plexy-glass top that has a hole in the corner for venelation, We're assuming she jumped up from the bottom of the cage and somehow got out of that hole. We dont want to have to patch it up so that they cant get air but we have dogs so we dont want them running around the house either! PLEASE HELP

[shredthedocuments]

just a quick sidenote... if you decide to go with a petstore as opposed to a breeder or rescue, i really really reccommend staying away from petsmart. PETA has uncovered some very terrible things about petsmart suppliers. you can read more about it here: http://getactive.peta.org/campaign/p..._investigation

i've bought one mouse and one rat from petsmart, before finding out about these things, and they both required a lot of extra time and sensitivity in order to open up to me.

[VetTek]

Quote: Originally Posted by InfamousShadow We have them in a large fish tank with a plexy-glass top that has a hole in the corner for venelation, We're assuming she jumped up from the bottom of the cage and somehow got out of that hole. We dont want to have to patch it up so that they cant get air but we have dogs so we dont want them running around the house either! PLEASE HELP

I am definitely not a rat expert like some others on this site, but I really do want to jump on this and strongly suggest that you take off the plexi-glass lid and put a wire mesh lid on instead. Rats need lots of ventilation, especially in an aquarium type setting because the ammonia builds up very quickly and their poor little lungs are very sensitive. And it was suggested that if you keep your rats in an aquarium that you put a fan nearby to help increase the air circulation into their cage.

As far as keeping the cover on, you could make up some kind of clips that hook onto the top of the lid and onto the lip of the top of the aquarium. However, the wire lids are usually pretty heavy and she shouldn't be able to lift it up and escape.

But please do remove that plexi-glass lid ASAP and replace it with a wire mesh lid so that they can get better air circulation.

Debbie

[rat freak]

Well I know hairless skin can get dry and cracked but Rexes are cool too!