Hawkeye Farms said:

Fancy rats are some of the sweetest critters on the planet. I had one live to be 7 years old. He was a grey and white bi eyed (one bright blue eye one bright red eye) male. His name was Duel. He was the coolest rat I had out of the 50 ot 60 I raised. He had a bad injury when I got him, and when my friend and I had to lance his paw to drain the infection all he did was lick my fingers and didn't struggle. He knew we were trying to help him,

Hawkeye Farms said:

Yes they can be trained to do tricks. Duel would actually climb out of his cage and sit in front of my door and wait for me to come home from work. His was the one cage I never secured because I trusted him that much. The other rats I had knew their names and would come up when called to get their treats. They will adjust their schedules to yours. They actually want to be a part of their human's life. They usually won't bite, unless you startle them or you injure them in some way. The only time I was ever bitten was when I accidently startled one of the rats or had to break up a fight. Those little bastards can bite through kevlar. Out of all the rodent pets a person can have the ones less likely to bite are guinea pigs and rats. Hamsters, mice, and gerbils will bite at any given moment because they are really small and they think you're going to hurt them since you're so big. That's why it takes a lot of time of handling a hamster to get them tame enough to settle down when you pick them up.

Hawkeye Farms said:

I had one when I moved but he passed away shortly after the move. Sage was a mean little bugger when I got him, but in the three years I had him he finally started to trust me. I didn't trust him out of the cage unsupervised, but he turned out to be a sweetie once he realized I wasn't going to eat him or let the cats eat him,

Hawkeye Farms said:

They aren't mine either, but my nephew wanted one for his birthday and since I had experience with hamsters I helped him pick one out. 2 weeks later he got tired of it, and said take it away or I'm just gonna let it die. Needless to say I took the hamster in, and when she died a friend of mine got me a replacement hamster (Sage) when I really didn't want one, but I couldn't say no.

Hawkeye Farms said:

Yeah my nephew isn't that smart. This is the same nephew who kicked my cat across the room one day. He didn't like my response to that. I won't go into detail, but I scared the hell out of him when he did that. He told his mom, and his mom looked at me and told me I mellowed as I aged. Cause when she did that to my cat when we were kids I went after her with something very large and pointy. My dad pretty much stopped me from doing something very stupid back then. Needless to say I don't let the nephew around my animals, and when Hitch (my cat he kicked) sees him, he goes running and hiding under the bed.