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Pet Rats: Essential Care & Surprising Facts for Happy, Healthy Pets
Published on July 17th, 2024
Updated on October 22nd, 2025
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- Rats are highly intelligent, affectionate and loving mammals.
- They are very loyal.
- Rats are extremely clean pets.
- With proper socialization, rats are one of the most social and trainable companion animals.
- Rats have incisors that continuously grow throughout their life! Be sure to provide plenty of chews, available a wide variety of shapes and colors.
- The naked tails of rats can be used to regulate their body temperature. Their tails are also used to provide balance and to communicate with each other.
- Rats have scent glands on the bottom of their feet. These scent glands mark territories and help them retrace their footsteps.
- A group of rats is called a pack or swarm.
- Rats can swim.
- Ancient Romans considered rats to be a sign of good luck.
- Ancient Egyptians and Mayans worshipped rats.
- The average size of a rat’s litter is 12 pups. Rats can have litters of up to 20 rat pups, but it’s not common.
- Rats do not have the ability to vomit.
- The first rat to become an astronaut traveled into space from France in 1961!
- Rats are now available in a wide variety of types including hairless, dumbo (with large ears), Siamese and more!
- Rats are nocturnal, meaning they are most active at night; however, they can adjust to your schedule.
- Rats have appeared or starred in hundreds of movies and television series.
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