glumshoe:

bottombobbysinger:

glumshoe:

If you have rats, don’t let them interact with other small pets (or larger pets, for that matter). They can and possibly will attack, kill, and attempt to eat other animals of similar or smaller size even when well-fed, because they are instinctively predatory. 

I severely doubt this is true, and challenge anyone to find a source. Anecdotes will most likely be of rats killing other rats, and litter culling. Rats only cull their litters when there is not enough food to keep the babies alive, or the mother rat is severely stressed.

Rats naturally hunt in the wild. They’re omnivores. I have friends whose domestic, well-fed rats have attacked and killed their parrots and gerbils without warning. Fancy rats will even dive into aquariums to catch fish, if given the opportunity. Rats killing and eating chickens is a fairly common problem on farms. There are loads of videos online of rats attacking birds – I’d add a link, but some of them are graphic.

Squirrels will eat birds if they can catch them, and squirrels are mostly herbivorous. Rats are opportunists and will eat anything they can catch and kill.