Latest Videos

A family of genetically tame black and agouti roof rats

Transcript

All right, look at these guys. That one is just chilling out, he's been there a long time. He's always there. The other ones are kind of exploring. I thought that one might be a boy, but I couldn't really tell. Turns out that's a girl, a very tame girl. They're pretty good babies.

See, she's thinking about jumping. If she starts kind of shaking her butt a little bit, that means she's thinking about it. That's why she's just sitting there, asking herself, "How do I get down from this thing?" And there she goes. Look at that. Go play with your friends.

There are seven rats here, two girls and five boys. Most of them are black, and we have a few with white tail tips, and I think one or two are like this one. I saw one for sure. And this is the mama. Mama is up there.

I can feel them messing around in my hair. At some point these guys will be ready to play with and stuff like that. Right now they're pretty young and they're not really used to people. This is the first time they've been on me. They've never seen me before in their whole lives, these little guys. That's because we don't tend to handle them too much when they're very small. It's better for them, and it also helps us know which ones are truly tame. If you handle them a lot when they're small, they might get tame anyway just because you're handling them, but then you won't know if they're genetically tame. So our goal is to breed the most genetically tame ones to make it easier for future breeders, who can just breed them and always get nice tame babies. Like what you get with Norway rats. With Norway rats, when you breed two rats, you really expect that all the babies are good. That's our goal here.

See, she's doing her little licky thing. Yeah, you're doing your little licky thing on me. Thank you very much.

That's one thing we can do with these guys, because if you put Norway rat babies on you, they'd probably fall. These aren't going to fall accidentally, but they may leave on purpose if they don't want to be on you anymore. Usually that means they'll jump down, because they don't like to climb down. That's the funny thing. They like being up high because that's where they feel safest, so they're not likely to just run down, but they might jump down, because they do like jumping. It's a natural behavior. Usually they want to try to jump to something else that's also high up. So if I got next to that wall, that screen wall there, they would probably jump to it right away. But as you can see, they're not likely to climb down, and that's great.

I can actually hear some of them boxing on me, so some of them are quite friendly. They're literally boxing and stuff, and that's a very, very good sign. I bet you they're going to be good pets someday. Okay, little guys. Maybe this is long enough.

How to Pick Up & Hold a Roof Rat (Scruff and Support)

Transcript

So we had the rats up there, and the idea was to take one down and show how to pick him up and hold him. This one is a boy, I believe. We checked, and yeah, he's a boy.

The way to do it is to scruff him with one hand and put your other hand under his butt at the same time, so it's not so stressful for him. The scruffing makes it easier to pick him up. Otherwise he would just slip right out of your hands. These guys have got a lot of life in them, they really do, and that's a good thing.

It also kind of shows you how tame they are, whether or not they struggle when you scruff them. This guy didn't struggle much at all. Getting a closer look, you can see the one hand supporting his butt the whole time. He doesn't love it, but he's not struggling. And that's really all there is to it.

Boy vs girl roof rats: how to tell them apart

Transcript

This is an agouti boy. You can see he has a lot of hair. So how can you tell that he's a boy? It's much more visible on an agouti. You can see his little balls and penis right there. That's definitely a boy. Yeah, you like that, don't you?

Now was this one a boy or a girl? He's a boy too, but he's black, so it's a little bit harder to see. And he's so close to the camera, and so scruffy. Let's do a close up so he can show us what his little willy looks like. Where are his little genitals? His balls are here, and there's his little penis. Yeah, that's a boy. That certainly is.

Okay, so this one is a little girl. How can you tell she's a girl? The distance down there is shorter, and you can see she doesn't have balls. No balls at all. So that's a little girl.

And this one here, she doesn't have any balls either, and the distance is shorter too. Another little girl.

How to make your pet rat love you #petlover

Transcript

This girl is very calm. In the video, she's getting a face rub, and she loves it. You can see it right there on her face. She really loves it. Her name is Sweety.

While we're petting her, the other one comes over and tries to get in there too. So how do you pet them properly? You go along the ears, give a little head scratch, and there on the cheek. When you do it right, she closes her eyes a little bit and just relaxes. See, relax. Just like that.

And the other one looks really jealous. You can see her watching, like, why aren't you petting me? That's not fair. I bet Tommy's really jealous too. There's Tommy, watching the whole thing. I think Tommy wishes you could pet him like that.

Look at that face. She is a good girl. Her name is Sweety.

Our favorite roof rat is a chill, chunky girl

Transcript

We've got three sisters here, babies that are about six months old, almost half a year. They're all girls, and the plan is to breed them. And oh my goodness, are they chunky. What fat little tummies. One of them especially is very calm, and she was the star of this visit.

I asked whether, going by color and temperament, there's much difference between these girls and the blonde rats. Qiong figures some of the blondes could potentially be more calm, since we've been breeding the blondes exclusively for maybe four or five years now. But this girl really impressed me. She was just standing there like a little statue, letting herself be petted. I've been making movies of these guys a few times now, and it still gets me just how calm they are. And look at how long those tails are. That's ridiculous.

Qiong wants to keep this one as a pet, and I'm not surprised. She really is doing well. She's like a little fat Poofie, though Poofie wasn't quite that fat. Qiong joked that she's probably calmer than Qiong is, and honestly, what do you expect? The blonde ones are pretty calm too, but this one is very special. She is very, very cooperative. Qiong doesn't really spend a lot of time socializing them, but they just naturally look out for each other and get along well.

She hasn't had any babies yet. She's kind of a baby herself. You kind of wait until they're older before you breed them, so you can know if they're really calm.

They're really curious little guys. At one point I had to step back and ask Qiong not to walk toward me, because it makes it hard to get them in the shot. The cat was very curious too. The cat often watches while we make these videos.

Then came the face rubs. She loves it. She really loves it. As soon as it started, one of the other girls came over trying to get in on it too. I asked how you pet them properly, and it's along the ears, with a little head scratch in there on the cheek. She was closing her eyes a bit, totally relaxed. Meanwhile the other one looked really jealous, just watching, like, why aren't you petting me? That's not fair. I bet Tommy was really jealous too. Tommy's the one that's bigger, and there he was, watching, still a little worried. I think Tommy wished he could get petted like that.

Her name is Sweetie, and she is a good girl. I love that girl, and I'm kind of glad she's going to be bred. You've got to find a really special boy for that one, though. Really special.

I thanked Qiong for showing me these guys, because this is fantastic. Sweetie is Qiong's favorite rat so far. By the end she was sitting there cleaning herself. One of the other girls really likes to be next to Qiong's hat, for some reason. The one in the middle is just always watching the other two, curious what they're doing, and always curious about Qiong too. And of course Tommy is very curious as well, just sitting there watching them while they kind of ignore him.

Right as I was turning the camera off, Sweetie tried to go into Qiong's pocket. She's fallen in there before, but she might be a little too big for that now. She is definitely an adult rat.