Boys or Girls?
I get this question from time to time, so I will give you all some major differences of each and let you decide. The major difference for me is the personality. Of course, this is a generalization, and isn’t true for all rats. Many first-time owners and people with children get females, but most of the people who have had rats in the past get males. I believe that there are many misconceptions about male rats, that keep first-time owners from wanting to adopt them.
Boys/Males (“Bucks”)
- Size: Tend to be bigger than females
- Personality: Calmer, prefer to sit with their humans, rather than explore and play
- Activity level: Lower than females, less playful, 'lazy'.
- Fur: The texture is 'harsher' not as soft, they also produce buck grease though this will vary from rat to rat and can be influenced by diet, neutering will also decrease the production of buck grease.
- Physical Characteristics: Let me try to put this in a PG-13 way. Boys have, well, boy parts. Boy rats have some of the largest “boy parts” in relation to their body size. It can be a problem for some, including parents who aren’t ready to answer the “what are those things by his belly?” question yet, neutering is a good solution to this problem.
- Health: Less likely to develop hormone related tumors, more prone to hind leg degeneration and obesity into their senior years, due to activity level.
- Smell: Some people believe that males smell more than females. I haven’t found this to be true at all. I will say that because males are quite a bit larger they produce more waste quicker. And due to their lazy nature can be 'messy'.
- Urine leaking/marking: Males on average urine mark more than females. However, some of my females mark more than my males, so this is widely variable. Neutering also reduces marking behavior.
- Aggression: I have not noticed either sex being more prone to aggression in well bred lines. Aggression is terribly hereditary, poorly bred rats of both sexes have reported problems. Neutering/Spaying can be a great resource to solving problems with aggression.
Girls/Females (“Does”)
- Size: Tend to be smaller than males
- Personality: Love to explore. They want out of their cage to snoop around and get into mischief. They are more inclined to play, and easier to teach tricks/agility to.
- Activity level: Although rats aren’t a particularly hyper animal, they tend to be more active than males. They also have a tendency to be more destructive, so it's very important to give them enough mental stimulation.
- Fur: More finely textured/ soft.
- Physical Characteristics: Females don’t have the obvious parts that boys have. Female rats do not have a menstrual cycle like humans and unspayed dogs/cats.
- Health: More likely to develop hormone related tumors, particularly pituitary and mammary tumors when not spayed.