Rats make wonderful pets, partly because they are so easy to look after! Rats are designed to eat plants, eg seeds, roots, nuts and fruit, but they also need some meat or dairy products in the diet as well.

The cheek teeth of the rat are more like our own than the teeth of rabbit or guinea pigs. They don't keep growing throughout the animal's life, but like ours, they erupt when the animal is young and have to last it all its life. This suggest that the rat is not a 'herbivore' like the guinea pig and rabbit, but an 'omnivore', an animal that needs to eat meat and vegetables.