In Reply to: Re: Woudn't the glider kill the rat? posted by collette on February 05, 19100 at 05:39:47:

I would definately not recommend keeping them together. The problem being that the rat will probably eventually kill the glider. I work at a pet store where we usually have a large number of rats on hand as feeder rodents for large snakes. (I know... poor rats, they make such neat pets, much better than hamsters, mice, gerbils etc... but the snakes have to eat too.) Anyway, adult rats can be surprisingly large and would far outweigh any sugarglider, that being a large advantage to the rat. About 2 months ago, we had a canary at the store that was placed in our feeder rodent room because it had been purchased and was on hold for a customer. The day after it was placed in the room we came in in the morning to find only the birds head laying on the bottom of the cage(yuck) and a rat sleeping in a corner of the cage. Someone had forgotten to tightly close a lid on one of the tanks and the rat had eaten most of the bird. There was an easily accessible food container in the room and the rat could have eaten that but instead it opened the bird cage somehow and climbed in and ate the bird!! I have also witnessed rats attacking cage mates and eating everything but the skin. These rats are well fed due to the fact you kind of have to gut load them as you do crickets in order to make them nutritious for the snake. Therefore they do not do that because they are hungry. The are omnivorous and therefore consume meat. I have nothing against rats as pets, they are great animals even for children. I just think you should be aware of this before they get put together again. I would call it a big risk. Hope I could be of some help and Best Wishes!!

Raechel

Follow Ups:

• Re: Woudn't the glider kill the rat?there is one chance steve 22:45:47 2/05/100 (1)
  • Re: Woudn't the glider kill the rat?there is one chance Cynthia 06:33:05 2/08/100 (0)