About wild rats...

[adam giguere]

Is it possible to tame a wild rat?  I was just thinking if I ever had a wild rat in my home, instead of trying to kill it, I'd try to tame it and make it my pet.  That would be a fun thing to do!

[Mousie's Mom]

I don't know if it can be done.  But I don't think I would want to try.  A wild rat would be used to being wild and I think it would be miserable if caged.

I wonder what would happen if I got a rat in my basement.  I would NEVER kill it.  But I would need to think of some nice way to remove him and set him free somewhere nice.

If I didn't have rats of my own, I might be apt to just let him be.  But because I do have rats of my own, I would be terrified of having a wild rat in our house in fear he would expose my ratties to aweful disease, mites, lice or who knows.

[Ensie]

If I found a wild rat in/around my home, I would respect that animal's right to live its life as it pleases and I would try to rehabilitate it instead of tame it down. (I wouldn't know how to rehabilitate a wild rat, though, so I would take it to a rehabilitation center for local wildlife.) From the rat's perspective, if I began my life with complete independence, I would not be happy otherwise. A domesticated rat that has been bred and born into captivity is an entirely different story.

[WeeRaffins]

There are traps called Have-a-Heart Traps that you can use to catch feral cats, rats etc. that don't hurt them. You just put some food into the trap (which looks like a cage) and set the trip wire. When you catch the critter, you can release it somewhere else. I've never used one, but my aunt has a feral cat problem (they were dumped by some awful person...my aunt's tried to tame them, but it's never worked) and she's used one of those traps to catch them. Then she releases them on the fish farm near her.

I love walking on the fish farm on summer mornings when it's still cool out...ahhhh.... Right now it's 105 degrees farenheit outside, tooo hotttt!