Recent discussions and having my responses removed in a certain Facebook group makes me realise that I probably haven’t been the most vocal about my own feelings about interspecies interactions and how they can affect my decision to home out my rats. And given that my responses have been removed it is now not possible for other people to get an understanding of why some breeders may be cautious about homing their rats out to pet homes that already have other pets. So let’s talk about it.
First off, if you have other animals, that’s great, I love pets, but this will make me evaluate a homing application. As someone that only has rats in the house, my rats get the run of the house which means the only animal smells they encounter here is other rats and humans. This means my rats live their daily life in happy bliss that they don’t have to worry about a predator. Other breeders that have other pets will have rats that are born into an environment that already has other smells in and they will be used to this, but for my rats, this isn’t the case.
So what does this mean when I have to consider homing requests? It means I have to consider three main aspects of the homing:
While the average pet home may not consider these things, these are things that I, as a responsible and ethical breeder, absolutely factor in, and I don’t take any of this lightly. My rats are my babies, and I want them to go to the most suited homes.
So let me go over this point by point so you have a sense of what I mean.
Will the rats be safe in this proposed new home? I really hope that this should be obvious but just to elaborate; I want my rats to be safe in their new homes. This means that not only do I ask about suitable housing, bedding, food etc. for them, I also have to consider other family pets. Will there be a danger that a pet could come across the cage and the rats get injured? Could the rats come across other family pets while out on free roam? I want the rats to be as safe as they can be and in this aspect, I am very cautious when it comes to cats and dogs. But especially cats.
Will the prospective home’s current pets be safe if my rats get homed there? If a prospective home already has pets, not only do I need to consider if the rats I’m homing will be safe, I also need to consider if the current pets will be safe after homing. If they get too close to the cage or encounter the rat in free roam, what will happen? Should the rat react out of fear, will the other pet sustain a bite injury for example? This is why breeders ask for rats to be kept in separate spaces, to minimise any risks through inter species interactions to both the rats and other pets.
Will there be any reputational and financial risk for myself? This might seem like a trivial point to some but I take this point seriously. Not doing due diligence for homing can result in many issues that will affect me personally. If the rats I homed out to a multi-species home don’t settle, will it result in aggression? Or Injury? How will this affect myself in homing out future litters? And also where will that leave me with a homing fee? My rats eat through house and home in terms of food raising them and I don’t profit from homing kittens. Homing fees barely cover half their food while being raised over the 8-10 weeks they’re with me before homing. Will the pet home want a refund? Because technically, that adoption fee has already been spent in raising the litter. And that’s before I have to then take additional time to try and find another home for the rats if they’re returned for any reason. If I don’t factor in safety of all animals in the homing process and people have issues, will I then be slated across the internet? Will people want to home rats from me? While I try and factor this all in when assessing a home, there’s always something I won’t have been able to factor in and people talking in groups online rather than to me (as I have seen many times) creates additional problems that in all honesty I don’t need. I already work a 9-5 job and the rats are my hobby and I want to enjoy them, I don’t want to worry about them being returned. And I want pet homes to adopt them too and really enjoy having them as pets.
Due to my rats being the only animal in the house, I can never be fully sure how they’ll react elsewhere. This doesn’t mean I will turn down applications that already have other pets, but it will cause me to look into this in more detail. I’ve found homing out rats in the past that it’s mostly been ok, but honestly cats are one of my biggest issues. You can’t police a cat like you can a dog and people seem to let them be everywhere. While this isn’t a one size fits all comment, it’s just easier for cats to be where you don’t want them to be. And after having an issue not too long ago where I strongly suspected one of my rats didn’t settle in a home because of a cat, I will be more mindful of this moving forward.
You might think that having rats from other breeders was fine because they didn’t care about it too much, but that might be because they already have other animals and could roughly tell you how the rats would respond to them. I am not other breeders so please me mindful when reaching out and consider the animals you do already have. Please don’t make the mistake of thinking every breeder will be fine with homing to you if you already have other pets, always check with them first and don’t listen to random comments in online groups from people that are not a breeder and don’t have to look at homing from every possible angle.