When God gave man Dominion over the animals He gave us a duty of loving & responsible care to them.  "All animals" includes Rats.

• We aim to breed healthy, well mannered and tame , loving, intelligent, alert and friendly pets some of whom may also be suitable for showing.

• We only breed from the most personable rats and that is our primary consideration in selecting breeding stock.

  • We do not breed from hormonal or aggressive bucks.

  • Nor do we breed from hormonal or aggressive does.

  • Nor do we breed from a rat that nips. 

  • We select our stud bucks late - far later than is the norm. We rarely use a buck for stud before the age of 22 months. The reasons are simple: the buck who looks studliest at 10 or 12 months old is never the fittest healthiest, best looking buck at 22 months of age and we're breeding for health and longevity above all other considerations.

  • Also, selecting for Stud late allows you to see the buck through the peak of his hormonal levels and de-select any that are too much the 'Alpha male' as this is not a trait we desire in a rat. A buck that is fine and dandy at 10 months might be an over-dominant **** at 15-16 months. In other Ratteries he would have already been used for stud by then. Here, that behaviour would deselect him and his genes will not be passed on.

• We do not breed from any rat with any health problems or health defects. Again, breeding late allows these to be seen and eliminated before being passed on. 

  • We also breed our females a little later than is the norm too, for similar reasons.

  • Interestingly it has been proven that late breeding the does delays the onset of aging and this has been born out by our experience too; our two year old does look remarkably young still.
     

• We never cull our kittens or adult rats.

• We will never supply a single rat to be kept on its own as this is psychologically damaging to them and tantamount to cruelty.

• We only offer up our kittens in same-sex pairs/trios, etc, as it is vital to a rat child's development that they grow up with at least one friend of the same age.

• We consider it a welfare issue that rats be housed in groups of 3 or more rather than in pairs. For this reason, if they are not going to share a cage with other rats, we do not supply pairs of rat kittens, only trios.

  • Rats are highly sociable animals who thrive in a group environment and for whom a pair sitution is highly unnatural.

  • Groups of three or more give rise to smoother cage relationships as the social burden is shared rather than placed entirely on the other rat. 

  • The only time I have ever seen bored looking rats is when they are living as just one of a pair. 

  • Being part of a small group mitigates against death by heart-break; when one of a pair 'passes on' the survivor is always extremely miserable and can be tetchy and difficult to deal with. And it is not unknown for the other to die a 'sympathetic' death shortly after. When they live as part of a group that doesn't happen. This is especially important with male rats.

• If you have an older rat that needs a new companion following the death of its cage-mate we may be able to help you as we occasionally have a few teenage or young-adult rats available who would be ideal for this - but it will be at our discretion and we reserve the right to say "no, sorry".
   

• Our rats are sold as pets only. Please do not breed your rats as it is harder than you think to find loving homes for them.

• Our bloodline kittens are £15 each.

• Rehome and Rescue rats (incl. Rescue offspring) range from £5 to £7 each and all funds received go straight back into rat care.

• We will never let any rat to go to a person or people who feed them to snakes, etc..

•  We reserve the right to refuse to rehome our rats if they are going to be kept in a cage or environment we feel is unsuitable.

•  We reserve the right to refuse to rehome our rats to a place or person we feel is unsuitable.

We will never sell any of our animals to homes where rats are used for snake-food.

Please don’t offend by asking. 

We provide a full history for each of our rats and you can see their parents and relatives here too.

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 We do have some questions/requirements of you as a potential owner -see questions. 

 All of our rats are health checked before leaving our care to go to new homes. 
We are happy to advise on all things rat related and provide a lifetime's support to both you and your ratties. 

We welcome the full spectrum of ratty people; everything and everyone between experienced owners and those brand new to the rat world. 

We do ask that, if, for any reason your circumstances change and you can't keep your rats any more, you please bring them back to us as we'll gladly take them in;
we consider them our children too.