I've owned both mice and rats - and after my first rat, I would never choose mice again. I love looking at them as they are so small and sweet, but a rat is more like having a tiny dog as far as intelligence and responsiveness goes. Plus yes - rats smell less. They don't have to smell at all, if you have two females (rats are social and need rat company) as I did, and clean the cage frequently enough. Boys are whiffier (we have three at the moment) but generally more calm to handle, especially if you get them as babies.
Daughter has trained the rats not to poop when being held, and is working on litter-training them in the cage so thy poop in one corner, making cage cleaning much simpler. Females take to this training better than boys. But boys get huge and squishy, like beany toys, and have cuter bellies. :)
I've owned both mice and rats - and after my first rat, I would never choose mice again. I love looking at them as they are so small and sweet, but a rat is more like having a tiny dog as far as intelligence and responsiveness goes. Plus yes - rats smell less. They don't have to smell at all, if you have two females (rats are social and need rat company) as I did, and clean the cage frequently enough. Boys are whiffier (we have three at the moment) but generally more calm to handle, especially if you get them as babies.
Daughter has trained the rats not to poop when being held, and is working on litter-training them in the cage so thy poop in one corner, making cage cleaning much simpler. Females take to this training better than boys. But boys get huge and squishy, like beany toys, and have cuter bellies. :)
Omg, how did she train them to not poop when being held?? We only have one male rat. So since he doesn't have a rat friend, we have to interact with him a lot so he doesn't get bored and depressed. We would enjoy having him out a lot more if he didn't use the bathroom on us every time. Better yet, is there a way to train him to only use the bathroom when he's in his cage?
Well with my rat when ever she went #1 or #2 I put her back in the cage right away. When I had her out I gave her treats I kept doing this till she finally stopped going restroom outside. Not sure if that can work for mice though. Its funny how when I put my rat back in the cage She goes straight to the corner of the cage and pee's right away.
My Syrian was the most cuddly, tame, hamster I have ever seen. His favourite thing to do was to fall asleep in my arms. He was just chilled out.
My Dwarf is very hyper, and much more fun to watch. She is awake in the day much more, poops a lot less. She lets me pick her up and she will sit on my lap and have a back rub.
I like them both for different reasons. Syrians are more inter-active, and draves are much more fun to watch, plus they poop less as they are much smaller. I have heard of dwarves being nippier than Syrians. There are four different kinds of dwarves, the campbells russian (most common, it's what I own), winter white russian (similar to campbells, less common, similar tempermant to syrians), chinese dwarf (very similar to mice), roborovskii (very hyper, and almost impossible to tame). Dwarves can be kept in groups, but expect fights to break out.
You just have to be patient with them and give them their peace ( ie. not bother them every two minutes).
I have a dwarf hamster. All I know is that she is a Russian. Anyways she is always very friendly to me unless I wake her up when she is sleeping. She always comes to the front of the cage if I make any noise and she loves being held.
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