Rattie Ratz: Long Life After Adoption, Biscuit

by Alyssa Nader

Alyssa Nader is a volunteer with Rattie Ratz Rescue in the bay area of California. Each month KRL will be featuring at least one animal rescue adventure story, and every other month there will be one from Rattie Ratz.

Biscuit made an appearance in KRLM last year when we heard about him joining a new family to comfort another rat who’d lost his brother. He’s now 2.5 years old! Let’s see how he’s doing.



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Biscuit and his brother, Disco, came to Rattie Ratz from an animal hoarding situation in the East Bay. They came to Rattie Ratz as a large group and were understandably pretty scared. After my rat Bitey’s brother, Pablo, passed away, I brought Disco and Biscuit into my home.


Disco and Biscuit lived together for the entirety of Disco’s life, when he passed away earlier this year from an upper respiratory infection. Since then, Biscuit has lived on his own and has been at peace in his old age, with lots of snacks and playtime from his humans.
Biscuit (front) with family. Photo: Alyssa Blake Nader

Biscuit has always been a very gentle and submissive rat. As you can see from the above photo, he is quite large! We have taken to calling him Giant Boi and Gentle Boi for his sweet nature.

After his brother Disco died, we tried to integrate Biscuit into a pair of females, Eunice and Fantasia. Eunice, a near-sighted and nervous Himalayan girl, would have no part in befriending Biscuit (or anyone), as much as he tried to submit and let her know that he wouldn’t hurt a fly. He tried putting his head under hers and never fought back even when she was ready for a brawl.

You can’t ask for pears from an elm tree and we finally wrote off the girls and boys living together once naughty little Eunice bit Biscuit’s finger (three times).
Biscuit lounging. Photo: Alyssa Blake Nader.

Biscuit has always been shy, and a bit withdrawn from humans. As he’s gotten older, he has been affected by hind leg degeneration (or HLD). HLD occurs in older rats and manifests as weakness and immobility in the back legs. Hind leg degeneration generally occurs earlier in males than females, possibly because they tend to be larger and lazier than female rats. There is no cure for HLD, but care can be taken to make sure that the rat’s cage is accessible and comfortable for them.

Biscuit. Photo: Alyssa Blake Nader
We make sure that he has a mostly flat level cage with easy to climb features and plenty of soft areas to rest. We make sure that to check that he able to clean himself and does not have any signs that he needs help with grooming.

He currently spends most of his day in his favorite place, a chewed up, collapsed cuddle house that I call his pink Jabba the Hut costume! He is available at short notice for any offering of snacks and enjoys licking out, then destroying yogurt cups. A big fan of privacy, he will move all the objects in his cage to create more nooks to hide in if not in his Jabba costume.

Owning rats is very unpredictable, but Biscuit has been one of those easy, sweet and loveable guys who doesn’t give you any issues. What breath of fresh air in a crazy world! For this, I thank you, Gentle Boi and look forward to making many more offerings to your Jabba Hut.

Gentle Boi with a fellow gentle boy. Photo: Alyssa Blake Nader.

Rattie Ratz is an all-volunteer organization whose mission is to help all domesticated ratties who come to us find a loving, forever home.

Rattie Ratz: Rescue, Resource, & Referral
Click here to email us at: info@rattieratz.com
Call us at: (415) 340-1896

If you would like to know more about Rattie Ratz Rescue or find out about upcoming information/adoption events, please visit our Facebook or Instagram. If you are interested in adoptable rats or volunteering for Rattie Ratz Rescue, visit our website.

Check out more animal rescue stories in our Pet Perspective section on Kings River Life, and the Pets section here on KRL News & Reviews. Check back every month for another animal rescue adventure from Rattie Ratz. Advertise in KRL and 10% of your advertising fees can go to Rattie Ratz.

We also have a brand new pets newsletter that will be going out once a month letting our readers know about all of the pet and animal rescue related articles that went up that month so you never miss a thing. We hope to send the first one out in May. We also hope to provide some additional content and maybe even some pet related giveaways. You can use this box to subscribe!




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