Training and Taming
This begins before you get your rats. The rat’s brain goes through a developmental process between 4 to 8 weeks of age, and the experiences the rat encounters at this time has a big impact on it’s personality. Ask if the rat has been picked up, played with and spoken to during this time. A rat that has will be much more confident and trusting than a rat that hasn’t. All rats will become tamer and more confident as they get older and get to know their humans better, but a rat that has been ignored at 4 to 8 weeks old will never be as tame as one that has been socialised during those early weeks. There is a significant genetic component to rat behaviour as well. Some rats are confident, some are boisterous, some are nervous and skittish. Male rats tend to be more confident but less inquisitive than females.

Bringing your rats home
When buying rats, it is a good idea to acquire and set up the cage, bed, food, water and such before bringing your rats home. That way, your rats don’t have to sit in a small cardboard box while you put the cage together. The rats will probably be carried home in a cardboard box. The best thing to do is just to put the box in the cage, open the box, close the cage and leave them to it. The box will have familiar scents and will give the rat some comfort in adapting to its new home. They will most probably stay in the box for a while, maybe for several hours if they decide to sleep, and then they’ll make slow, tentative explorations of the cage. Try to keep activity around the cage to a minimum initially, so as not to scare them, but it’s a good idea to be around, so that they get used to what you look and smell like. Talk to them quietly so that they begin to become accustomed to your voice. For the first few nights, they will most probably not want to explore the entire room, and it helps greatly if one escapes if they regard their cage as somewhere safe to hide in. If a great big hand snatches them from the cage on their first day there, the cage won’t seem to be a safe place.

Taming
On the second or third day, sit near the cage with the lid open and place your hand inside. Be sure to have rat-proofed the room first just in case one does do a runner - rats can jump about 8 feet from a standing start if they need to. The rat will be inquisitive and will probably approach your hand. Don’t move initially, let the rat approach and sniff. It may nibble, but once it’s worked out you’re not food, it’ll stop nibbling. It’s extremely unlikely to bite, unless you move very suddenly towards it and the rat feels cornered and threatened. The rat will probably sniff your hand tentatively and then run away. It’ll come back and sniff again, this time maybe not running away quite so quickly or so far. Speak softly to the rat all the time. If the rat seems very confident you could try moving your hand ever so slowly towards the rat and stroke it gently if it lets you. This is probably enough for rats and for you at this stage.

Bribing a rat with food
The next day, take the food bowl out of the rat’s cage a few hours before you plan to spend time with them. Then get some rat treats. Raw peanuts are great. Put your hand in the cage and hold a peanut with the very tips of your fingers. Stay still. The rats should smell the food and investigate. Let them take the food, they will either run away to eat it, or hoard it. Talk to them all the while, what you’re trying to do is to get the rats to associate your smell and your voice with being given nice food. If you have the time you could try exclusively hand feeding your rats at the same time every night. Doing this will make them very tame very quickly, but make sure that there’s always a little food available in the cage for when you’re not there.

Picking up a rat
Rats should not be picked up by the tail, it is distressing for the rat and a good way to get bitten. The best way to pick up a rat for the first time is to lure it with a favourite treat. Start by putting the treat on your palm, forcing the rat to put at least one foot on your hand to get at the food. Then move the treat further and further up your arm until the rat is confident enough to run up your arm to retrieve the food. Alternatively, just try sliding your hand underneath the rat ever so slowly and gently scooping it. If you succeed in picking the rat up, give it a treat immediately, and it will associate being picked up with getting something nice to eat. Let the rat run around on your arms and shoulders, it may like to play inside your jacket, and may fall asleep hiding in a sleeve. A rat that is happy to eat, groom itself or sleep while sitting on your arm is one that is confident that you mean it no harm. When you are certain that you can pick up your rat, let it go explore the room, after rat-proofing.

Rat-proofing
This involves two activities. Make sure that the rat won’t be harmed by anything in the room, and that there’s nothing in the room that’ll be harmed by the rat.

Cables
Rats love plastic. Maybe its the smell of it, but they love plastic. Especially the plastic used as electrical cable insulation. Allowing your rats to chew cables can have disastrous consequences for your electrical appliances and your rats. Get hold of some thick clear plastic tubing and put all electrical cables inside it. Why they chew cables and not tubing I don’t know, but they seem to completely ignore the tubing. My rats have chewed through the cables for my mouse, keyboard, joystick and speakers. They ignored the mains cables for some reason, but I wouldn’t rely on them doing so, it is safer to just cover all the cables.

PCs
It was recently shown that the power supply units of PCs emit an ultrasonic whine, that sound somewhat like a rat - rats are chirping and squeaking to each other all the time, just at a frequency too high for us to hear - which can attract your rats to your PC, once at your PC they think, “hmmm, wires, tasty” and start munching, so my PC is off when my rats are out.

What goes up...
Rats enjoy climbing, and often climb up to places before working out how to get back down, so be prepared to rescue them from shelves and lampshades and clothes horses often. Also as they get older, they get broader of beam, but they don’t seem to realise their increased girth, and still attempt to climb down things head first, which often ends up with the rat falling and slinking away with a “yeah, I meant to do that all along” expression. Rats can fall quite a distance without injury, so this isn’t something to worry about too much, just make sure that there’s nothing awkward or nasty for them to fall onto. You might be able to tell that the envelope overhanging a table edge won’t support a rats weight, but the rat cannot work this out, and will run along the envelope bringing the envelope and itself falling to the floor. Make sure there’s nothing precariously balanced on table edges that could make the rat fall and then land on top of the rat injuring it.

The great escape
Check round the walls for holes that your rat might escape through. They can fit through a surprisingly small hole, if a young, slim rat can get its head through a hole, the chances are it can fit the rest of itself through as well.

Vegetation
Find out if your houseplants are poisonous. If they are, remove them. Also remove any houseplants that you don’t want your rats to destroy. Rats love digging and will dig up the roots of a houseplant, killing the plant and spreading little muddy footprints everywhere.

Before you buy
Housing and food