A few fact on rats you may or may not of heard
warning please do not read if you are easily offended may contain offensive material
We have all heard the stories about how repulsive rats are and of course the
actual word rat has come to be associated with many a phrase and slang, usually
bad never a good word said. The actual word rat only first appeared in "aellfric'd"
vocabulary in about AD 100. It then appeared has a place name in 1185. The
first time the word appeared in English literature is in a poem by William
Langland in 1378, it was called, Piers the Plowman again not good words
spoken It is slightly better for our rats these days although there is
still the press that insist in writing gory stories, usually through bad
information or plain bias. No matter what is put in front of this type of person
they will have every intention of writing what they think the public wants to
hear, which is usually a load of rubbish or just blood and
guts.
Throughout history and in literature rats are regarded with repulsion and fear. But rats are intelligent, sociable, and loyal and are true to the bitter end. They certainly don’t deserve to be hounded, trapped, shot, electrocuted and poisoned and lets not forget the horrendous sticky boards that the pest controllers are now using.
The domestic rats we know and love today are called fancy rats, bred and interbred to the point of mutation. There still is little difference between these fancied rats and their wilder cousins, except that is for the colours and these poor fancy mutants now carry an organism called Mycoplasma pulmonis, which often shortens their life span. Some may argue this and say they have been bred for their looks and temperament, breeding animals for looks only induces health problems and when man interferers with nature for their own repulsions, one can only call it mutation.
Over the years we have had many inquiries whether or not rats carry diseases, so I hope I can lay this myth to rest.
Fancy rats pose very little risk of spreading anything, no more risk in fact than say a Hamster or Gerbil. You can catch more from the average cat and dog than you can from a domestic rat. The humble pet bird can give you more diseases than the above.
People with healthy immune systems will have a resistance to most diseases, however if people are immuno compromised through concurrent diseases they must take care of handling any animals, but usually washing hands after handling is sufficient. I myself have immune system illnesses and have kept rats for over 20 years and have never gotten ill through rats, my nieces and nephews have been brought up with my rats and haven’t caught as much as a tapeworm from them, the risks are very minimal in fact in my case non existent.
Note :the
following zoonotic diseases may occur if your pet rats were in contact with wild
animals, which is very unlikely unless you keep them in a unsecured shed at the
bottom of the garden and if this were the case, then you should not have rats in
the first place.
CRYPTOSPORIDIOSIS has been implicated as being the cause of diarrhea in people with immunocompetence, this could be caused by several animals (not just the rat) and if care is taken with washing hands after handling, especially if the animal has diarrhea then no problem should occur.
HYMENOLEPIASIS this
is hymenolepis nana (the dwarf tapeworm) again associated with other animals, if
hands are thoroughly washed after handling the risks remain minimum.
LEPTOSPIROSIS (WEIL’S DISEASE) this is carried by wild rats only and there is only a small
percentage that carry it. Unless your pet rat has had direct contact will wild
rats there is no risks attached.
RINGWORM
this again can be caught from a variety of animals, fungal spores are
transferred when affected animals are handled, again very rare and proper
hygiene, make it less likely.
SALMONELLOSIS is usually considered in cases of intractable diarrhea, most common carriers are birds. We can also pass this one on to rats if we don’t wash our hands before handling them.
The first pet rat was introduced to Victorian households, sometime in the 19th century. It is believed that doctors and laboratories assistants took them home and eventually domesticated them and of course you also had the infamous queens own rat catcher who was thought to have tamed hundreds of rats and sold them to the Victorians has pets.
In Chinese astrology, the rat is of great importance it rules from 11pm until 1pm, (in our home they rule 24 hours a day) the associated season is winter and it corresponds with the sign of Sagittarius (my birth sign). It is also the first animal on the Chinese zodiac, the year of the rat is a year of prosperity and hard work, the rat is considered hard working and intelligent, the year of the rats comes around every 12 years the next will be 2008.
The rats we know today are direct descendants of our wild brown rats The Norway rat (rattus novegicus)). They are not the same as the ones that carried the fleas that supposed to have spread the Bubonic plague (Black death) in 1664-65. In fact it was the black rat (rattus rattus) and it only helped to spread the plague, there were also other animals and humans that helped spread it around not forgetting the humble bird, that still carry deadly diseases The black rat was the only native rat to be in Britain at that time..This brown rat was believed to have come from Asia and entered Britain via the Norwegian peninsular (hence the name} This clever brown rat hitched free passage to other parts of the world and arrived in Britain sometime in the 18th century.
Soon after the brown rat arrived it actually out bred the poor black rat that even today no longer reside in Britain. mainly due to the mass poisoning that took place every year. Up until the beginning of the year 2003 we had a lovely little colony living on the Island of Lundy, that was until some so called murdering bastard decided that having rats on the island was not good for tourism, this was despite there only being one remaining colony left in England and all the campaigning in the world would not change the minds of these cruel low life excuse for human beings, These people ignored everyone even hard evidence that was put together by specialists they made up their minds they were going to be wiped out one by one, even they were one of the most endangered species in the o.k. and no one gave a fiddlers flute about it. These rats and other species died in agony, it can take up to 4 days or more for them to die, they use an anti cogulagilent which makes their insides come away from their bodies. This method of murder is also approved to be humane by the RSPCA RSPB Landmark Trust, the National Trust English and English Nature, perhaps they should try and eat the poison, they will soon find out if it was humane., MAY THEY ALL BURN IN HELL..
Getting back to it all. It was soon documented that among these brown rats were white albino mutant rats. Scientists soon were very interested in them and started to breed them in captivity. After breeding many generations of them, they documented that they had managed to eradicate their wild behaviour. They also noted that in captivity the rats were much bigger than their wild cousins, the females were producing bigger litters and the rats were becoming more docile. They had bred the perfect lab rat and after hundreds of years these poor creatures are still being persecuted and forced to go through the most horrendous pointless tortures, for the sake of science. see the SHAC webSite
There are thousands of rats and other animals, all around the world that die agonizing deaths every day, some of the tests that are carried out are for make-up and washing powder, can you live with yourself knowing this. Make a difference and choose none cruelty products and next time you go shopping take a look on the back of your usual household items you will be very surprised.
