I already have on rat, and I am getting a hairless one too. I am turning one of my birdcages into a rat cage for them. I was going to put it next to one of my other bird cages which houses my amazon. Will my amazon be affected by my rats at all? Like health wise?
I think you should be fine if you position the two cages next to each other. A couple recommendations though. First, make sure to keep the rat cages and the bird cage extremely clean as each animal has a unique suite of symbiotic gut flora (microscopic organisms living in an animals digestive tract); although its perfectly healthy for rats to be exposed to rat gut flora (and birds to be exposed to bird gut flora), any exchange of gut flora between the two species (most likely via urine or feces) may cause one of the animals to become extremely sick as they are not adapted to deal with these foreign microorganisms. So, just be sure to keep both cages free from too much urine or feces waste. Furthermore, you should be cautious of the interactions these two animals may have. Rats, a timid prey species, are generally scared of larger animals they aren't accustomed to, so keep this in mind when you put the cages next to each other. You may want to initially put a visual barrier between the cages and either leave it in place or remove it after the animals appear relaxed while living side by side. Finally, make sure there is enough separation between the two cages such that the bird couldn't bite the rats tail or vis versa. As long as everything is kept very clean and the animals don't display any behavioral abnormalities, you should be fine.
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Hope this helped!
It depends on what sort of bedding your rats use. If it is something that produces dust, you will absolutely want to change it to something that does not. That is the most likely issue I can think of. Make sure that your rats can not reach the bird in any way (so place the cages at least a few inches apart, not right up against each other) to make sure they don't harm the bird or that the bird won't harm them. I'm sure you already keep a very clean cage since birds need that for respiratory health, but make doubly sure you also keep the rats' cage clear of too much urine or fecal matter, as the smell could become irritating to the bird .
That's all I can think of right now. Good luck!
