People often ask us if Roof Rats and Norway Rats can play together. Apparently, these guys can! BaoBao and Chill are Male Roof Rats, and Rollie and Brownie are Female Dumbo Rats. They got along just fine: there was some rear sniffing and urine marking, like you’d expect in any rattie playdate. A bit of playful chasing, but not much else. The male Roof Rats were similar in size to the female Dumbos, and they had similar activity levels, too. They actually seemed like good playmates for each other.
I introduced Cinnamon and Bear’s Dumbo rat babies to Bandito, an adult male Roof Rat. The babies (mostly) seem just fine with Bandito and he has no problem at all with them. He’s mostly just interested in eating a nut. Roof rats are not aggressive towards babies: I’ve never seen an adult attack a baby of either species.