If you have decided to adopt a rat as a pet in your home, you may be wondering if it can be bathed. These are somewhat delicate animals that we must handle very carefully and properly.
Because of their small size and their tendency to flee from the water, there are very useful systems and tricks to use so that bathing our pets is something positive for our best friend and not an uncomfortable moment.
On our site we will inform you about the reasons and how often you should bath your rat. Keep reading these tips:
The first soak
Ideally, we should perform the first bath of our rat coinciding with the summer period. In this way it will be much easier for the pet to accept water well and understand it as something positive.
You should know that rats do not like water very much and we will have to get them used little by little as if it were a game. We will try to relax them with kind words and caresses.
If we can't wait for summer, we will use a small container with a couple of fingers of water at 37ºC-38ºC to wet, not bathe our little friend. A small basin or the same bathroom sink can work well for us. It is about getting our friend used to contact with water, always at a pleasant temperature.
Bath frequency
In this case, less is more. The less we bathe our little pets, the better, the milder their body odor will be if they don't get dirty.
When we proceed to bathe them, the animals lose part of the natural oils that their bodies secrete and protect them from the outside. The animal body regenerates and produces again the lost oils, whose smell is more intense. At most we will bathe our small pets once a month.
The first bath step by step
The first bath, properly speaking, should be done when the small pet is used to contact with water. That is when we proceed to soap it with specific products for small rodents You will find them in any pet store. Prepare materials:
- rodent shampoo
- a basin of water
- a pitcher with more water
- 2 or 3 small towels
Find a safe place where, if you try and manage to escape, you won't fall too high or injure yourself in any way. Find a small and intimate place If the pet is scared it will get stressed and will hate bathing. A large basin is also a good solution.
- Start the bath by letting the rat soak itself by playing with you and the water. Help with your fingers so that, little by little, it gets wet.
- When the rat's fur is completely wet (except on the face) we are going to start applying the soap very carefully. We recommend starting with the hind legs and moving towards the head.
- We will be very careful not to get soap in your eyes or ears.
- Once we have rubbed the soap well all over his body, we are going to rinse with abundant water already prepared in a jug.
- Finally we will place our rat on top of a towel and gently rub it with another, helping it to dry.
When should we bathe our little pets?
Whenever they get dirty, we must clean them, but we will never bathe them with water more than once a month, as we have previously commented and explained the reasons. However, what should we do if our little pets are very dirty and get dirty frequently?
There are 3 systems for dry cleaning our small pets:
- Cleaning powders
- Cleaning dry foam
- Wet wipes.
Cleaning powder resembles talcum powder, but it is a dry detergent that must be distributed over the entire body of the animal, except for the face and genitals. Then the body of the animal should be brushed with a very soft and thick brush to remove the dried detergent and the resulting residue.
The foam should be applied to our hand and then rubbed into it, massaging our pet, rubbing so that it penetrates to the dermis, except for the head and genitals. The way to remove the foam will be through a clean cloth with which we will rub the rat. Then we will pass a small brush.
The wet wipes that we must use are those used for babies. They go very well to clean their legs and tail. Do not use them to clean the face and genitals. Then we will pass a dry cloth.
Material disinfection
We must be very scrupulous with our pets' cages, toys and materials. It's our duty to keep everything clean so our pets don't get sick and our home doesn't smell like a zoo.
Food and drink containers must be washed daily. We will wash the cage thoroughly on a weekly basis. There are some cage models that fit inside dishwashers. Small steam projectors can also be used, which are not excessively expensive. It goes without saying that people who enjoy large dry steam machines will be able to perform perfect disinfection in the cages of their small pets.
