Should i get a small pet rat

help

I have owned rats for over 3 years now and I highly recommend them as pets. They do require some maintainence and attention, though. Cages have to be cleaned once a week (more often if you have multiple rats) and rats are really social, so it's best to get two rats to keep each other company but if you only want one make sure you're prepared to keep it company (15 min of play time per-day, at least). Rats are sweet pets; they are clean, quiet, low-maintainence, and even trainable. If you do decide to get one I reccomend finding a real rat breeder; their rats have the best personalities and are less likely to develop illnesses (rat's are susceptible to many breathing problems as well as tumors and other health problems). However, you can go to a pet store to buy a rat, just be SURE male and female rats were kept COMPLETELY SEPERATE. Even if they were together for two seconds you could be bringing home 14 rats when you expected 1. If you do buy on from a pet-store ask the clerk if you can spend some time holding all of them to find the calmest, most social rats. Baby rats are often timid and high energy, but traits like biting, scratching, crying, fleeing from human, and unusual violence towards other rats (not just play-fighting with litter-mates) can stick with them into adulthood. Trust me, I once had two rats I couldn't feed/handle/move without oven mitts; it's best to find sweet, young ones.

Also try these links for more information:http://www.quite.co.uk/rats/