The Podel's Multimammate Website!
Handling Multimammate rats...
I have heard a lot of mixed reports about the handling of Multimammate rats. Where I acquired my three from they were of the opinion that they tamed fairly well but I have also read in several places that they wont tolerate handling and can be quite "bad tempered". In this article I will write about my experience with handling my boys and how I approached the situation.
To start with although this is at this point purely speculative (I will get some references to back this up at some point) it should be remember that Multimammates are not as extensively bred as domestic mice and rats and are not currently widely kept to be handled as pets. For this reason I believe they simply aren't as domesticated. So when you approach them to start handling bear this in mind. Being elevated and handled is not a natural state for any rodent but more domesticated species are likely to have been bred down the generations to be more docile and accept/tolerate this strange sensation.
When I acquired my Multimammates I decided that I was going to disregard what I had read on handling them and see for myself. I decided (for the reasons already discussed )that while I had the time over the summer I was going to put lots of slow and steady work into getting them tame.
To start with I handled them nearly everyday over their cage base, this was to prevent them bolting and me loosing them somewhere (something I learnt from the Jird in the washing-up bowl incident years before). I made sure I picked them up calmly by scoping them with both hands. Their first reactions to smelling my hands (if they were brave enough to do so) was as if I smelt really bad! much like domestic mice I have encountered they would squint their eyes and screw their faces up.
The initial handling sessions didn't have to be long but I made sure that it ended as positively as possible i.e. everything was nice and calm. In the beginning the two young males especially were very nervous and would run quickly through my hands. Jasper on one occasion got very panicked and bit me. They also urinated and defecated frequently. Badger the older male tended to move carefully and deliberately through my hands as he was also nervous, but didn't choose to flee like the younger males.
Jasper being handled, when he was a juvenile
After a couple of weeks when we were more used to each other, I started to implement a reward scheme. The reward was getting put back in the cage (their safe place), but in order to gain this they first had to remain calm in my hands. Its a trick I use with nervous domestic rats but I am not sure how well it helped here. Badger had by this point started to try his teeth out on me, he didn't break the skin ever, but it still hurt and made me a little nervous of him. Here I used another trick that I use for rats and that is he was not allowed to learn that biting me means being put back in the cage (reward). Its a hard one to implement and on occasions if he did get put back because he bit, he would come straight back out.
The younger two were settling more now although they still seemed to like to empty their bladders on me. Badger however was beginning to get a bit of a reputation for having an "evil" streak. Whenever I used to approach him to scope him up he would put his head under his belly and nip my fingers. So I had to make sure that both hands reached him at the same time so he couldn't decide what hand to bite first! , this for the most part worked. I also on occasion if he was making me very nervous (it happens to use all, you are feeling under the weather etc and really don't want to be bitten) would pick him up by the base of the tail, just to remove him from the cage and then handle him and he would be fine.
Several months down the line I decide to try some other methods I use with nervous rats. Firstly I started to make me the safe place. I would do this by carrying them on little trips around the house, of course this would be quite scary for them and with no cage to be their safe place the next most familiar thing would be me. Secondly and the thing I have tried most recently with them is having them out on the rat blanket on the sofa and they seem to quite like it for short periods.
I got to the position with them where I felt I could handle all of them confidently and all of them tolerated it a lot more then they did when I first had them. I wouldn't say they were totally relaxed about being handled but they would walk from one hand to another, showing some willingness to explore. Maybe this is as far as I could ever take them? or maybe with some more work they would have been tamer? I am not sure but what I do know is that I was very glad I tried. If anything they benefited by being less stressed about my presence which can only be a good thing living in a house full of "scary" humans, who have to feed, water and clean you on a daily basis!
