Introduction to the Rat Race: a guide to the care of companion rats, including the ship rat (Rattus rattus)

Line-drawing, in bold strokes, of rat sitting up grooming itself

N° of hits since July 1999:

INTRODUCTION TO THE RAT RACE

A guide to the proper care of rats as companion animals: history of the rat in Europe; health-care tips (including care of the diabetic rat); setting up a cage; introducing new rats to an existing colony etc..

Save the Lundy ship rats!

Now includes *RatLines* ratty items for sale - rat-cartoon T-shirts, toys for rats, toy rats for humans etc..

Go to plain-text version

The site looks best in a medium text-size, and is set to adjust the width of images to look more or less the same at all screen-resolutions and as far as possible for all browsers (it works with IE, Netscape, Opera and WebTV, anyway), provided you have JavaScript enabled: in the absence of JavaScript it assumes you have an old system and sets the images to fit a 640x480 screen. If you resize the browser window and then reload/refresh, for most browsers the images will adjust to the new window-size. This scripted version is new: if you encounter any problems getting it to work, please let me know.

[Although all pages will load correctly in Netscape, Netscape 4.7 is so flaky that it may take two or three attempts. If a page-header is missing, or the page looks wrong in some other way, allow it to finish loading and then go back out and come in again, and it should come up perfectly at the second or, failing that, the third pass. Most pages are broken into separate table-blocks, to aid loading in Netscape and also to minimize formatting problems in Netscape 4.7 by confining them to small sections - since Netscape 4.7 randomly refuses to justify text around particular images and any other text within the same table-block. There's no apparent rhyme or reason to it and no way of controlling it, since which images are affected varies with your browswer's font-size. Readers who look at the HTML will find there are inconsistencies in the way images are formatted, e.g. in some cases the image itself is aligned right or left; in others it is set in a paragraph which is so aligned. This was done to get round bugs in Netscape 4.7. I cannot tell you how much I loathe Netscape 4.7.]

New additions: the site has been substantially re-worked, including entirely new sections on the wild Norway rat and on the rat-temple at Deshnok. Nearly all pages now have added artwork. This makes the site a lot more visually interesting, but of course slows it down a bit: if you just want to look something up in a hurry there is a link at the top of every page taking you into a plain-text version (which is also suitable for the Lynx browser).

Coming soon: chart of fancy rat colour-genes (I've been saying that for about two years - which is how long I've been waiting for a certain somebody to provide the list of white-spotting genes she promised me, and which I need to complete the genetics section); authentic ship rat noises (maybe). New fancy and/or ship rat cartoons will be added usually every two months, after they appear in Pro-Rat-a.

Mouse/Rattus rattus bullet-points adapted from animals font. Rattus norvegicus bullet-points and in-line buttons taken from a design by Ellen Sandbeck and © 1999-present www.arttoday.com (you may copy these provided you reproduce their copyright notice). To see copyright details and provenance of other illustrations, left-click on image.

N.B. Both Rattus rattus and Rattus norvegicus have numerous common names. Rattus rattus is variously known as the Ship, Black, Roof, House, Alexandrine or Old English Rat, and Rattus norvegicus as the Norway, Brown, Field or Sewer Rat: and both are known as the Common Rat. I have used the names "Norway Rat" and "Ship Rat" because those are the ones in commonest use in Britain, and because they generate some interesting puns: but in fact most of these names make very little sense. The Norway Rat isn't from Norway; depending on the local climate the Field Rat also lives in houses and the House Rat in fields; both rats go on ships; and although black coats are much commoner in Rattus rattus than in Rattus norvegicus both rats come in a wide range of colours. In fact the only name which makes much sense is the American term "Roof Rat" for Rattus rattus. Even there, Rattus norvegicus also sometimes occurs in attics and Rattus rattus in burrows, but it is generally the case that Rattus rattus prefers to live on top of things and Rattus norvegicus prefers to live underneath things, and if we could start again from scratch in the naming stakes I would suggest calling the two species Roof Rat and Cellar Rat.

The Fancy Rat.
This is the normal pet and laboratory rat: the domesticated form of the Brown, Common or Norway Rat Rattus norvegicus. Probably the most attractive and easiest to care for of all cage-pets [strictly speaking the easiest and most attractive of all are female mice: but male mice are smelly and quarrelsome!].

The Ship Rat.
Also known as the Black, Roof, Alexandrine or Old English Rat, this is Rattus rattus, the original Mediaeval rat: now rare in Europe but very common in Asia and fairly common in Africa, Australia and warmer parts of America. Not strictly a pet species - certainly not a beginner's pet - but these animals are occasionally kept by experienced rodent-fanciers, or adopted from the wild as orphans.

Ratty rings.
Some rat and general rodent-related web-rings and links.

Rat haiku and other assorted oddities.
Samples of miscellaneous rat-related poetry and art, with links to other sites.

Suggested reading.
Rats in fact and fiction: a selection of the best.

RatLines.
Various rat-related items which are or soon will be for sale, including T-shirt designs by myself and by Bunny Duffy.