If a dog bites child, we animal lovers say, "there is no such thing as a bad dog, only a bad owner, it's not the breed" it's the owners fault.

Now, we have a rat owner who lets a seven year old child have responsibility for a rat, including cleaning the cage, that they are not able for, and the parents are not able to keep the child protected from, to the extent the child needs ambulance personnel to treat the child's injuriies.

Can someone please expalin why the parents haven't made a mistake exposing a chld to a rat with a history of biting fingers until the rat bites the childs eyelid?

Owners fault or pets fault? A seven year old chld is too young to be at fault.

And I'm not writing this for the Op's sake, but for others who might follow their example.

I AM the OP! My love of animals has not overtaken my common sense, my son looks after his rats incredibly well, the rat has never bitten outside the cage before and it is common for rats to give a warning bite inside their cage if they are startled. I never let my son have his rats unsupervised. I also clean the cage, he helps me. It had never bitten HIS fingers before, just stupid people who put their fingers through the bars. His behaviour was totally out of character. If you have never kept rats personally then you cannot offer advice in this situation. I made the decision to rehome before I posted here. I was asking for advice from people who have kept rats (hence the title) on what might have made him turn and whether I could rightfully expect his breeder to have him back.

I did not ask to be judged on the merits of letting a responsible 7 year old hold his own pet!

Why does there need to be blame? Can it not be put down to an accident. Same as a dog nipping someones ankle when they've been playing?

Besides you chose to ignore my original question - why come into a thread when you have nothing useful to say on it? You have proven that you know nothing about pet rats, and yet you continue to try and tell others whats right and wrong about them. Now you've gone on to blame the OP for it?! Personally I think the OP sounds very sensible, she obviously knows about Rats, she's sought out advice when something did go wrong and she's made a tough decision for the sake of her family.

Please stop posting ignorant, uninformed drivel. Maybe you should follow our own advice and do some research.

I'm sorry that you've had to rehome your rat. If he's a year old, and has previously been good-natured, it could have been his hormones playing up and castration might have been the answer. As for the breeder, any responsible breeder will take a rat back, for any reason, at any time during that rat's lifetime.

Sadly some of the replies on this thread were very predictable, but it shows how much ignorance there still is about pet rats.

I thought i read somewhere that rats tend to find the sebum that forms on the eyelids "interesting", although a well adjusted rat would never have bitten hard enough to draw blood for no reason, so there's not much i can say about that.

Also, it's silly to think that pet rats are the same as sewer rats, it's like saying dogs are wolves. The simple fact that they have their own latin name (rattus norvegicus vs rattus rattus) should be a clue.

Most wild rats are Rattus Norvegicus, like the pet rats. Rattus Rattus is the black rat and is quite rare.

oops ?
no yogurt drop for me then :'(