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- Science Bits on Modifying Rat Behavior
- Modify Rat Behavior
- Earning Trust - Science Incomplete
- Let Rats Decide When
- Bathtub, Carrier, Glove, Shirt, or Pouch: These Are Just Things and Not Techniques
- Let Rats Use Their Teeth
- Help an Unsocialized Rat - Any Rat! - Love a Transport Box
- Litter Box Training Pet Rats
- Use a "Neck Box" with Shy Rats
- Help Your Rat Sit Quietly In Your Arms
- Help Friendly Rats Be More Careful with Their Teeth
- Work Inside the Cage to Help Shy Rats Trust
- Snuggle with Rats
- Pockets Pockets!
- Bond with Rats in "Pouches"
- Infant and Baby Rats - Affecting Behavior
- Bring Rats Into Your Shirt?
- Snug Holding Pet Rats
- Use Touch to Help Shy Rats Tolerate Touch
- Use Touch to Help Shy Rats Tolerate Touch - YouTube
- Help Tame Rats Slow Down Treat-Taking
- Rodentistry
- Please Do Not Use "Forced Socialization"
- Forced Socialization - Jane Adamo's Original Method
- Groom To Bond
- Groom to Bond - from YouTube 1
- Groom to Bond - from YouTube 2
- Groom to Bond - from YouTube 3
- Groom to Bond - from YouTube 4
- Aggression & Management
- Rat Behaviors
- Ratbehavior.org - Essential Behaviors
- Major Rat Body Language - RattyRat
- Establishing the Social Hierarchy: Normal Rat Behaviors
- Normal Play Behavior in Rats
- The Dangers of "No Blood, No Foul"
- Are These Two Rats’ Behaviors “Over the Top”?
- Rats and the Concept of "Alpha"
- Submission, Dominance, Appeasement
- Fear Behaviors of Rats
- Behaviors of "Released" Laboratory Rats
- Tail-Flicking in Pet Rats, YouTube 1 of 2
- Tail-Flicking in Pet Rats - YouTube 2 of 2
- Introduce Rats to Rats
- Enrichment
- Rats Hunt Feathers
- Rats Stash Stuff
- Rats and Evil Bandaids
- Fountains, Rubber, Rocks, and Rats
- Rats Stash from YouTube
- Rats Nom-Nom Coconuts
- One Example of a Rat Play Room
- Jump, Rats, Jump!
- Rats and Pumpkins
- Rats Enjoy Water
- Rats Play
- Enrichment YouTube Videos
- Rats Outside?
- Rats Make Trouble
- Fun Wheel, Stress Wheel, or No Wheel At All
- Rat Health
- Oops? Pregnancy, Birth and Babies
- Start Here: Rat Basics for Pregnancy, Birth, and Babies
- Rat Reproduction - by Debbie Ducommun
- Raising Rat Orphans
- Caring for Rat & Mouse Orphans - AFRMA
- Baby Rat Growth: Birth to Weaning - Rat Guide
- Baby Rat Growth: Baby Rat Development - AFRMA
- Baby Rat Growth: Pictures of the Pinkies - Rattie World O' Comfort
- Sexing Rats: Sexing Baby Rats 101 - AFRMA
- Sexing Rats: Alpha Centauri Stud
- Sexing Rats: Litter Journal - Curiosity Rattery
- Sexing Rats: RatRaisins.com
- Sexing Rats: Is This Rat a Boy or a Girl? - RattyRat
- Healthy Squeaks or Sick Squeaks?
- Bandaging Rats
- How To Do a Post-Op Bandage with Anchor Tapes on a Rat
- Slideshow - Post-Op Bandage with Anchor Tapes on a Rat
- Real Life Example of Anchor Tape Bandage Emergency
- When a Rat Won't Leave a Bandage or Wound Alone
- A Veterinarian Demonstrates Bandaging Rossi
- Good Bandages
- Workable But Mediocre Bandages
- Problem Bandages
- Bathing Rats
- Giving Medications
- When Rats Need to Diet
- Rats Do Hiccup!
- Rats Hiccup - YouTube
- Hind Leg Weakness
- Physical Symptoms of Ill Rats
- Videos of Rat Physical Exams
- Compassionate Euthanasia of Pet Rats
- Trimming Rats' Nails
- Trimming Rats' Teeth
- Rat Anatomy, or, Pretty Pictures
- Multi-Level Cages for Older Rats
- Assorted Rat Cages
- Compassionate Euthanasia
- Oops? Pregnancy, Birth and Babies
- Other Sites
- Rats Are Beautiful & Hilarious
- Friends
- Gwen
- Family From Fosters
- Three Rats: Maizie, Robin, Rudy
- Introducing baby boys to Gully, Tookie, and Pemy
- Introducing Maizie and Mijah to Gully, Tookie, and Pemy
- Maizie, Mijah, Reunited with Babies Rudy and Robin
- Maizie's Amazing Boy Babies, Rudy and Robin
- Maizie Has Oops Babies
- New: Mijah and Maizie
- Seven Makes Rats
- Willow Joins Me
- Flight Cage Fun (No, Rats Don't Fly)
- Pemy Joins Gulliver and Tookie
- Gulliver and Tookie
- Bitten By Pemy Rat
- Pemy and Dicey
- Mixed Up Lots 'O Rats Fun
- Old Lady Rat Lives with Young Boys
- Tugger, Toby, Timmy
- Adventures In The Rat Room
- Tugger, Toby, Timmy, Almost Grown
- Boy Rats Play Table
- New Boys Tugger, Toby, Timmy
- A Lila Rat Slideshow
- Chancy Rat, Four Years Old!
- Gwen's Pet Rats - The Girls
- Chancy Rat Boggles
- The Big Rat Room
- The Girl's Rat Room - When They Were Young
- Pen and Box Play Space
- The Old Lady Rat Room
- Clicker Adventures
- Karen Borga
- Lindsay
- Wanda & Tony
- Gwen
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Behaviors of “Released” Laboratory Rats
This set of videos shows 50 research lab rats
who were returned to
a (controlled, safe) "wild" environment, and then filmed "doing their thing".
It provides a great set of clips for what rats want and need to do
in an ideal enriched environment. At the bottom are many photographs
with rich illustrations, taken from the film.
Watching these rats first peer over the release cages, into their new world, and then take the risks to enter it - purely joyous. It's fascinating to see them show curiosity and purpose while scampering, foraging, exploring, and making a home.
Below are several clips from the film; scroll down to the topic that most interests you.

Berdoy, M. 2002. The Laboratory Rat: A Natural History. Film, 27 min. Ratlife.org)
The Laboratory Rat - A Natural History, Manuel Berdoy, Oxford University.
"Dr. Manuel Berdoy, a zoologist at Oxford University, released 50 laboratory strains of the domestic [Norway] Brown Rat back into a controlled wild environment in order to show that generations of domestication have not removed a rat's natural range of behaviours and needs. The rats were released into an outdoor enclosure and filmed as they competed in the same manner as their wild cousins. The rats instantly displayed a multitude of behavioural instincts that a cage in a laboratory had kept suppressed and soon adapted to their new environment very successfully."
CAUTION: These videos are posted on JoinRats to show the natural activities of pet rats when they have an environment closest to that of the wild. The researchers examined many other behaviors, including mating, agonistic behaviors, birth, death (infanticide), and the presence of predators. Please do not put intact males and females into any free-range environment. Please do not breed rats irresponsibly. Please do not allow cats, dogs, or other species access to your rats without prior socialization and protection against injury. Please do not provoke aggression between rats.

First freedom for 50 lab rats!
Above, first Freedom! Here we see rats drawn to explore the unknown, even when it's scary, and within the first few hours of their release from research laboratory cages, scampering and racing in big hops. Does this give you ideas to help your rats achieve the same?

Foraging - The more complicated it is, the more stimulating it is.
Does foraging sound boring? Oh but it's a goal of life, to find food. Good foods are hidden and must be dug or climbed for. New foods need to be approached with caution, and tested. These lab rats show how naturally they become acrobats working hard to reach their blackberries.

Agility. Dangling upside down from branches is a special skill, and even previously caged research lab rats can do it well.
Above, more foraging for food but with special emphasis on agility training. It turns out rats do belong in trees, but if we set some up for them, their safety comes first. Give them some kind of soft trampoline that they can fall onto, close to the floor. Rats venture into precarious situations cautiously and develop the needed physical strength and balancing skills over time. The more we give them safe, controlled opportunities, the better for their mental health as well.

Nighttime - Just what do rats do at night, and how do we help them do it?
Above, exploring at night. When rats are comfortable with their world, they build burrows and roads. They race around like crazy, continuing to explore. They may forage, looking for and accumulating food.

Rats organize their world.
Above: When you give rats space, they become quite familiar with the area and objects in it, and establish runs. If you disrupt that space, they need some time to adapt and feel comfortable again.

Pups go exploring, and learn from their elders.
Above: Please do not breed rats irresponsibly. This video is shown on JoinRats only to illustrate how rats learn from each other.

Extending the burrows = Prelude to Taking Over the World
CAUTION!
An important difference between specially-bred research lab rats, and the common pet rat, is that almost all pet rats are infected from birth with a serious bacteria that initially resides in their respiratory systems, Mycoplasma pulmonis, and one of the most dangerous ways to enable the bacteria to do the most damage quickly is to not clean urine-soaked bedding (ammonia being the problem irritant).
Please do not let your pet rats create the kind of urine-soaked bedding that these laboratory rats created. It is up to humans to keep pet rats' bedding in a constantly clean state. Straw can be fun, but not dusty straw, and never allow straw to become urine-soaked.
Read more about the deadly Mycoplasma pulmonis bacteria, and listen to YouTube videos of rats with problem respiratory squeaks.
Above, an extensive burrow complex - rats extend and expand their world. Of course, their ultimate aim is to take over the world, and when we give them the tools to do that, they forge ahead. Did you ever wonder why rats pee in their beds (unless taught otherwise)? Steaming, fermenting urine from the rats' hay bale complex during cold nights may explain it. How tragic that almost all pet rats suffer from Mycoplasma pulmonis such that allowing an ammonia build-up might be a quick road to death.
If you don't have the resources to create a running-water pool, fresh growing grass, ladders to climb, bushes, blackberry branches, solid soil for digging into (but not out of), 8-foot wooden walls lined with steel to contain the rats, and a wire top ceiling to keep out the birds, dumcats, and strange wild rats, then consider something less sophisticated. An example room is below, and please visit the other galleries in the Enrichment section of JoinRats for more ideas on how to give your pet rats ways to mimic the activities of wild rats.
These videos are posted on JoinRats to show the natural activities of pet rats when they have an environment closest to that of the wild. But actually taking a pet rat outside and releasing her to play, could be very dangerous. Please review "Rats Outdoors?" for examples from real life of the risks.
In addition, The researchers examined many other behaviors, including mating, agonistic behaviors, birth, death (infanticide), and the presence of predators. Please do not put intact males and females into any free-range environment. Please do not breed rats irresponsibly. Please do not allow cats, dogs, or other species access to your rats without prior socialization and protection against injury. Please do not provoke aggression between rats.
