We just got a Kitten and named him Ryolu - (rye-oh-olu).
I know, some people may wonder why on earth we would get a kitten since we have 3 rats but after a lot of research we figured it would be ok but I now see its going to be a long time before our rats will like our kitten.
We had the rats in their cage and our cat came up to the cage and was just curious as to what was moving inside. The kitten never touched the rats but our little boys got so scared of the cat they pretty much froze in time.
Myles would not move at all for a few minutes. He just stood there looking into space even after the kitten moved away.
Amadeus ran to their little house in the cage and would not eat for 3 hours. Even when we tried to give him his favorite snack, banana chips. He just stared into space like Myles did and it was a very scary thing to watch.
Amadeus is the Alpha Rat and the most gentle one of them all. He would always be the first one to come to the door of the cage when we sat down but no matter what we tried he stayed in the house. He would not eat, drink or anything. He just sat there in his cage looking like he was very very scared.
Jerry never got bothered one way or the other. He just walked around as he always does even when the cat was right up to the cage. Jerry just looked and walked around and it never bothered him at all but Myles and Amadeus was pretty much scared to death... almost anyways and it really scared us as well.
We stayed up with them until 4am and had Amadeus out of the cage (kitten was locked down in the bathroom) the longest and finally after 4 hours he started coming around.
I got a wash cloth and rubbed all over the kitten and then put that wash cloth next to the rat thinking the smell is what could have caused this to happen but it never bothered him at all, even when I put the wash cloth over top of Amadeus it never seemed to bother him.
I even made some kitten sounds to see if that got them scared and that never bothered them so I guess it all comes down to sight.
I would have never thought something like this would have happened. I mean the kitten never touched them and never even put his paws on the cage. He did get nose to nose with Myles and at first Myles seemed like he liked the cat but then he just froze.
This morning they are fine except Amadeus now takes his food into the house to eat and I dont ever remember him doing that. Jerry is the one would always grabbed his food and ran into the house to eat it and then come back for more.
We made a cover to put over the cage and will cover them up when the kitten is out playing and the rats are sleeping and when we put the kitten in his room we will uncover the rats and see how they do.
I sure hope our little ratties are fine. I read online that rats can get scared to death and we would feel so bad if that happened to our little buddies.
We want to keep the kitten but our little buddies come first.
If we have to give up our kitten its going to break our daughters little heart since she is pretty attached to the kitten so you can see the delima we are in but we cannot let our little rats go since we had them first and our daughters loves the rats.
I thought I would doing the right thing by adopting the kitten which we have already invested over $400.00 in the kitten. We took him to the Vet and got him shots and stuff and going to take him back in 3 weeks to get him spayed which will be clost to $100.00 and we still want to get him a Cat Condo so we are out some pretty good money on our kitten but I have to admit the Rats come first.
I really do not know what to do. We have other friends that have both cats and rats and they keep telling us everything will be just fine and how its going to take time to get the rats so they are not scared of the cat but we are so afraid they will "literally be scared to death."
I will make other post about this matter in the near future. Lets Pray for the best!
