Rats have very low opinions about bandaids.

Something in the plastic makes rats unhappy, and they will eagerly attempt to remove them from their human's skin. This can be a great enrichment activity.

You may have to help the rat slow down a little and become attuned to how to bite the bandaid enthusiastically, without nipping into human skin. Some rats will naturally and automatically be careful. Some might be less aware. .

You can help in a couple of ways. One is to take a gentle hold of the rat's body, and if you sense she is chomping too hard, or headed that way, intervene by blocking her or pulling her slightly away. Then let her resume. And/or, you can utter little tiny rat-like objection squeaks. The "squeak method" as it's called, means you Squeak Just Like a Rat. The object isn't to yell a loud human squeak so as to frighten your rat, but instead to use the rat's real squeaking behavior to signal "Hey Me No Like That" and "Ouch!". Your rat doesn't want to hurt you, so if she can hear the right kind of squeak from you, she'll lighten up her teeth pressure.

If you and your rat can enjoy bandaid enrichment, you can even get the big, 6-inch type, or apply 3-4 bandaids together, to make the Yanking just a smidgeon harder for the rat. Don't forget to help your rat succeed, if you need to, by pulling off the bandaid entirely.

I also suggest not giving a rat the fully-removed bandaid, as a gnaw toy. There is something not right about the glue in the plastic - after all that's what the rat's after in the first place - so ingesting the glue cannot be good. Yankin' and a yankin' is the name of the bandaid enrichment game. :)

Rats and Evil Bandaids

Many rats are quite intolerant of various plastics, and bandaid plastic is at the top of the list.

One day I'll edit this to zero in on the bandaid action but in the meantime scroll through and look for the switch to Bonny Bon-Bon in my hands, protecting me from the evil bandaid. Some people have said rats like to eat bandaids, but in my experience, my rats seem to hate the smell of pastic and the sticky stuff. They focus intensely on liberating my skin and once the bandaid is off, peh-toooey! they spit it out and sigh with relief. Your rat will quickly learn how much she can chomp into a bandaid if you utter little "Eeeps!" whenever she gets too enthusiastic. She will put in lots of effort to not hurt her human. I've had two rats together go head-to-head on a bandaid, competing for first to kill it, and I never felt a thing.

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One day I'll edit this to zero in on the bandaid action but in the meantime scroll through and look for the switch to Bonny Bon-Bon in my hands, protecting me from the evil bandaid. Some people have said rats like to eat bandaids, but in my experience, my rats seem to hate the smell of pastic and the sticky stuff. They focus intensely on liberating my skin and once the bandaid is off, peh-toooey! they spit it out and sigh with relief. Your rat will quickly learn how much she can chomp into a bandaid if you utter little "Eeeps!" whenever she gets too enthusiastic. She will put in lots of effort to not hurt her human. I've had two rats together go head-to-head on a bandaid, competing for first to kill it, and I never felt a thing.

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