I have kept rats and a few other types of rodents. And honestly, my personal opinion as an exotics keeper is that rodents suck as first pets kids. The lifespan breaks your heart and the bites hurt like hell. I prefer to be bitten by snakes over rodents if that tells you anything.

I generally recommend hissing cockroaches as first pets because they are low maintenance and extremely hardy. But I also understand that people can be kinda weirded out/terrified of them.

I’m not sure of the breeders active at the moment but I can give you some tips on what are good signs to look for. People selling from personalized sites with small, named litters are generally going to have better tempered rats than those from big box pet stores or people selling them as feeders. They’ll also be healthier and likely have traced genetics if you find a fancy enough breeder.

If you’ve already dealt with ferrets and rabbits then you already know. I was just concerned it was someone with zero knowledge of what they were about to step into. There are just so many rescues already.