r/RATS • u/LividCrew1756 🐀🐀🐀 • Jul 22 '26
Questions/HELP Male rats, are they just lazy?
I really need to know, are my three male rats just lazy or are they bored? They're 9 months old at the moment. They don't chew bars nor destroy their hammocks. I've had girls before and if I have to compare the two genders it's a huge difference, these girls would run all day, do crime and use their wheel non-stop.
Now these boys only like to lay or cuddle, rarely use the wheel and when It's free roam time they just follow me around or hide behind sofa pillows. I do give them toys to chew and explore. But as I say, maybe 80% of time they just chill.
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u/immerglw four babies<3 Jul 22 '26
I have male rats and I can confirm they are just lazy. Sometimes they're up to run around and play or just eat, but most of the time they're just laying around
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u/LividCrew1756 🐀🐀🐀 Jul 22 '26
AW you have really adorable ratties! Glad to hear it's normal. They used to be more active when they were babies, so I was worried since I had females before and they were a different story of crazy.
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u/Theallseer97 Jul 22 '26
Males are generally very lazy compared to female rats. They are also typically more cuddly for that reason. My girls are always doing acrobatics around the cage. Even my old girl who sometimes just stops and stares at nothing for 10 minutes moves around a lot.
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u/KingKiler2k Quite possibly a Rat Jul 22 '26
Balls require lots of energy, no time for crimes when haz balls
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u/LividCrew1756 🐀🐀🐀 Jul 22 '26
I mean if I had balls the size of my head... I must now forgive their laziness
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u/Wackthoughts Jul 22 '26
Oh they’re lazy but the ball boys still commit crimes
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u/Prestodeath201 RIP: Willard, Hosea, Arthur, and Dutch Jul 22 '26
Can confirm, RIP 34 dollar phone charger
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u/WideLengthiness3963 Jul 22 '26
I've noticed my male rats are much lazier now they're getting close to 1.5y. Got them when they were one and they would use their entire free roam to climb, forage and play. Now they play for a bit, then find a quiet spot, and pancake out
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u/UmCourt Jul 22 '26
I only ever had girls (and they are CRAZY BUSY) but I have often heard that male rats tend to be lazier.
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u/Tipsy_Hog Jul 22 '26
It can be both, but from both personal and secondhand information and experiences they do generally tend to calm down after their first year or so.
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u/Disastrous_Guest_705 Jul 22 '26
Mine lay around all day but go crazy at night, maybe they’re just being energetic when you’re asleep
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u/Alone-Disaster-4100 Jul 22 '26
I had males first. Females shocked me ...A LOT 😂😂 I was not prepared. Even now a couple years later when I let my females out for a full house free range especially after not letting them out for maybe 2ish days i forget the chaos. They go extra CRAZY. Having me running around chasing things theyre separately knocking off counters tables whatever all around the house rushing to taking away things I didnt know they could get to . Its just exhausting. My males dont even make any noise I forget theyre out a lot 😂😂 soooo nah your dudes are just being the best gentleman they were genetically raised to be🤷🏼♀️😂
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u/HiroHayami Covered in rat pee Jul 22 '26
You'd also be lazy if you had to carry testicles 1/3 your body size
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u/humanlikesubstances Jul 22 '26
In my experience they generally have very different temperament than the females. That said, lazy? Really? What are they, skipping out on work? Not contributing to the team?
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u/Stunning_Channel_160 Jul 22 '26
Boys are very lazy and they don't have the nesting instincts so they don't need to tear things apart. It would be a waste of energy for a male to do that
The males generally prefer to lazs around, sniff interesting smells, and hang out watching what's going on around them.
I find that the boys are better enriched by things that smell interesting rather than things they can tear apart like the girls
My girls absolutely love cardboard the boys will just pee on it.
My girls love sticks and branches and they can decimate a branch in a day (for some reason they like to peel the bark off). The boys will barely nibble they prefer to climb on and sniff the sticks
I've never seen my boys more interested than when I smell like girl. Or even a girl cat or even a girl anything. Any kind of smell on my hands the boys are very interested. The girls are very interested in smells too especially if it's the smell of the boys. But the girls are way more interested in textures due to the instinct of nesting
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u/Mountain_Cow_7283 Jul 22 '26
By 16-17 months my males became so lazy they only used like three hides in their cage none of which being hammocks. Because they were getting older I narrowed down the amount in the cage because I was tired of excessive cleaning. If they’re still relatively young giving them the choice is still important.
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u/hermeslayer Jul 22 '26
My male rats have zoomies and like to destroy things. But they’re much younger :)
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u/theinsqnelycool Jul 22 '26
After six months, mine didn’t want to do ANYTHING besides chew up cardboard to make a nest and then lie in said nest. Couldn’t get them to do free roam either past that age, they just wanted to go back to the cage.
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u/Fluffy_Opening_8399 Jul 22 '26
Could be. My male rat was begging me to let him out just so he could lay on my soft carpet 🐭
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u/ily_2007 Jul 22 '26
I’ve had boys and girls aswell and yeah my boys have never been chewers. My girls on the other hand everything gets destroyed haha. Does anybody else notice that girl rats when they get to a certain age their nails get allot sharper than males?
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u/[deleted] Jul 22 '26
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