A group of wolves is called a pack, a group of crows is called a murder, and a group of rats is called a mischief. My name is Ben Hubbell and I used to breed pet rats. The purpose of this Web site is to share my observations about the social customs and emotional needs of rats. Like most breeders, I bred for temperament. I suppose that most breeders assess temperament by how a rat relates to humans, but I was more concerned with how they related to other rats.
Two traits I bred for were a tendency to gently groom other rats and a tendency to share food. I built up an exceptionally loving mischief. It turned out that rats who love other rats love humans too. Many satisfied rat lovers told me I bred the sweetest most sociable rats they’d ever met.
Getting pet rats was a compromise for me. What I really wanted was to make friends with wild rats. I live in area where there is an abundance of undeveloped land. I used to have recurrent dreams about walking through these lands by myself at night and coming upon a colony of wild rats of all ages that would swarm into my arms. About 30 of them would come home with me, and in these dreams I would already have lots of rats previously gathered from the wild lands waiting for me at home.
