This came up a little bit ago... when we had our remaining two rats here out of the Mom + babies group... the two left were the most shy of the bunch and the most reclusive. Mom liked to nibble on hands. Not bite, mind you, as you will KNOW if a rat wants to bite you and you WILL be bleeding... but just reach out and chew on you, gently.
The difference between people coming by who were somewhat familiar with rats, and very familiar with rats, was interesting to see. The sort of familiar ones were scared of Mom. To them, she was going to "bite them" and they did their best to keep away from her. One set of people actually brought treats to try to lure the rats (as I had listed that they were more or less un-socialized -- other than our efforts here -- and very shy and leery)... well when Mom kept coming up to them and making them nervous, they'd hand her a treat, so she'd leave them alone. Well, Mom got smart and showed actually a ridiculous amount of interest in them (smart little thing). So they'd hand her a treat, and she'd go put it aside and come right back up. It was kind of funny to see!
Anyway, we got down to the last two rats, Mom and one of the female babies. So, I changed the ad to list them as having to go to the same home as a pair. Got a text message the one morning about someone asking if we still had some of the rats. I had updated the listing on my site, though the listings on other sites still listed the normal ad and said check website for updates on who's remaining. So I told this person, we still had Mom and a young rat, and they needed to go together. I mentioned how they were shy and needed a home that understood that, as the past people were very wary about this. She said they understood. I told them about the adoption form, they filled it out and everything, and we made an appointment for them to come see the rats.
When they came to see the rats, these people were like night and day to the others. Not afraid of Mom and her nipping... to the point that the rats were comfortable enough with them, to go back to their hammock to sleep. Well, these people decided they did want to take the two of them home, which led us to the next issue -- how to get them out of the cage. But in very rat person fashion, they had an idea! They wanted to know if they could buy the hammock, so we could just transport them in their hammock! What a great idea!
The hammock had already been chewed and used and I wasn't going to have them buy it, I told them they could have it, and unhooked the hammock with the rats still comfortably nestled inside. I was able to put that in the carrier, no problem whatsoever, and that made for the easiest transition for those nervous rats into the carrier ever! It worked great!
Sometimes thinking outside the box can yield great results!!
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