Pet Store Rats – The Ugly Truth

Pet Store Rats - The Ugly Truth

How Do Pet Stores Get Rats?

Rats that are sold at pet stores mostly come from rodent mills. These are businesses, focused on making a profit and not the welfare of their animals.

It is common for rats to suffer in the shipping process to the pet store, as they are not shipped in a comfortable way, but with convenience. Some rats will arrive dying of starvation or dehydration or severely injured.

When they arrive, the rats intended to be sold as pets are usually put into glass aquariums together, with cheap shavings. This keeps costs down for the pet store, and enables potential buyers to be able to see them clearly, but is horrible for the rats’ health.

Other rats are put in the feeder bin, with no distinction between sexes. Rats are sexually mature at 5 weeks old, so many of these females will be pregnant before/if someone buys them. 

The Good of Pet Store Rats

In my opinion, the only pro of getting pet store rats is the ability to get your rats without waiting for approval from a breeder or a rescue. You can pay and take the rats home with you right then.

If you saw a rat who was in pain or had something wrong with them, saving them from that situation could also be considered a pro, though take into account you are supporting the store that put them in that situation.

There are non-chain pet stores that claim to sell rats from local rat breeders, but approach these with caution. Ask for the name of the breeder, and contact them if the pet store manager gives you their name to ensure everything is above board. Most pet rat breeders won't supply pet stores with their babies.

Inspect the conditions the rats are being kept in. Does the pet store obviously have knowledge of rats and is keeping them accordingly? If any of the above are no, either they are getting them from a mill or the breeder is not a reputable one. 

The Bad

The list of the bad sadly outweighs the good. Because of the conditions the rats are kept in, and the disregard for attention in breeding, pet store rats often deal with more health issues, and aren’t always as friendly as rats from responsible breeders.

This isn’t to say that pet store rats are "worse" rats than breeder rats. My husband himself had two great rats he got from a pet store when he was a kid. Whether they're set up for a good life or have a bad beginning, they all deserve love!

Because pet stores are trying to turn a profit on the rats, they obtain their animals from rat mills where they are mass produced. This means the breeder rats are constantly pregnant, often caring for two litters at once while pregnant with their third.

These breeders are all kept in a small container their entire lives, receiving little to no human contact. The kittens (baby rats) receive very little contact with humans before weaning, and therefore aren’t as set up as breeder rats are to be friendly and outgoing.

You may get lucky and get a super friendly rat, but on the other hand you may end up with a rat that bites and/or is anxious and timid the majority of its life, or is chronically ill.

Sadly, when the breeder rats are retired from breeding in a rat mill, they don't get a happy ending where they are adopted by a loving family. The majority of them are euthanized and used as reptile food.

Strong genetic lines are usually not cared about in mass producing rats, other than obtaining more dumbo rats or other types that can be sold as "specialty", so care isn’t taken to focus on healthy lines. This opens up the possibility of getting a rat who may show chronic illness or medical issues early in life. What you save initially can lead to increased vet costs, causing the average cost of the rat to skyrocket.

Another issue in pet stores is the workers aren’t always knowledgeable about rats if they don’t own them. I see a common occurrence of people buying rats from pet stores and the worker will sell them a lone rat, either not knowing or not caring that rats need to be sold in pairs.

Rats 101: You can’t just have one!

Pet store workers may also have trouble sexing rats who are 5 or 6 weeks old, which is the age they are usually sold at. I’ve seen many people buy a pair of female or male rats from Petco or Petsmart only to find out they had gotten a male AND female when it was too late, and the female was already pregnant.

When this happens, you go from only needing one cage and two rats, to not only needing two separate cages and same sex companions for the male and female, but also having to have a birthing cage set up for your pregnant female!

If you are new to rats and are set on getting pet store rats, be sure to bring a friend knowledgeable about rats with you, who is able to help you with any questions you have and help make sure you are getting a same sex pair.

If you haven’t owned rats before, I would recommend getting two males, as you don’t run the risk of possibly getting two pregnant females and ending up with way more rats than you planned!

The Ugly Reality

If you don’t know what a rodent mill is, I would advise you to research them. I will warn you, what you find is incredibly disturbing, so if you have a weak stomach or sensitive heart, watch videos and look at pictures with caution. 

I won't post any pictures on this article, but this article has a picture of a typical rat mill. YouTube also has many undercover exposures of horrific practices in rodent mills.

While it is hard to look at, and researching for this article brought me to tears, this is the current reality of rodent mills. Euthanizing the rats by freezing or gassing, though terrible, are sadly some of the more humane methods they use.

Part of the sad truth is reptiles need to eat, therefore rats and mice will always be bred for food. But should our rodent friends have to be subject to such torture through this process? 

How Can It Be Stopped?

I remember when I was a child, and you could go to the pet store and easily buy a puppy from a glass enclosure in the front of the shop. Now, we all know these puppies came from puppy mills, and how often they were poorly bred and handled beforehand.

With laws passed and protests against them, you don’t find those stores nearly as much anymore, and so I hope it will be with the small animals soon! See below for how you can help:

1.     Don’t buy animals from pet stores. This is a controversial subject, as it is hard to walk past a sad rat in a poorly ventilated small            cage and not save him. Ultimately it is up to your ethical decision on what is the best option in the moment, but know when you            buy animals you are telling the pet store there is a need to supply more.

2.     Don’t shop for your rat supplies in a pet store that also sells animals. Places like Chewy or Etsy are great places to find food,                  bedding, and treats among other things to enrich your rats’ lives! Or if you like to get creative, there are many ways to make treats          and enrichment at home!

3.   Tell people! Many people don’t know or think about the horrors that the small animals face because of mills. Help to get the                     information out there!

Final Thoughts

If you are a rat lover like me, we can agree, all rats are adorable and deserve the best life. That being said, it it ultimately up to you if you will purchase rats from a pet store or abstain because of not wanting to support the store. I will not condemn those who do, as some will - everybody has to make that decision for themselves.

There are many ways to get involved in stopping the cruelty of rodent (and other animal) mills. Have a story about saving a pet store rat or how you've been involved in campaigning against animal cruelty? Let me know below!