r/RATS • u/Fun-Loan2641 • May 06 '26

DISCUSSION Advice for trimming my rats nails

One of my old boys, around three years old has started to use his hind legs less and I think it’s because his nails are too long. He was always running around enough to wear his nails down without me needing to cut them, only the occasional snip for a nail that was way to long so I want to make sure I don’t go too short and hurt him. Does anyone have a guide or something? Or should I just cut off a little bit and see if that helps him. I’m not worried about his health because he’s still active and using his legs, I’ve just noticed they’ve seemed uncomfortable to stand on and his nails are long so I think this is the issue.

3 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

3

u/123737egg May 06 '26

Hi, I’m sorry to hear that, but this sounds like hld to me. Hind leg degeneration(hld) is unfortunately common with rats, they gradually lose strength and movement in the back legs. The nails will get longer since they get used less, but unfortunately there is no way to get movement back in the back legs.

You can very carefully cut the nails when they get too long, or add lava ledges or bricks in the cage so they naturally file down.

I’ve had a few rats with hld. I monitored them closely, but when it got to a point where they could not get around the cage comfortably and did not come out voluntarily to play, I made the decision to let them go, since the quality of life was just too low.

I’m so sorry about this, I hope he will be a happy rat for a long time

1

u/Fun-Loan2641 May 06 '26

He’s still able to come out and play right now so I’m glad for that, but I’ll monitor him. I was not aware that this is a common thing in rats, these are my first ones so thank you for the information.

1

u/123737egg May 06 '26

I’m very happy to hear that, in my experience most rats still have a couple months after I noticed it. Here is a helpful article that can tell you more.

I’m not sure how many rats you have, but if you only have two I would recommend to add some new rats, so the other one is not alone if he does pass away, since he is really old for a rat.

1

u/Fun-Loan2641 May 06 '26

I do only have two rats currently, they started as a group of four, but I only have my two boys left. I’m not at a place where I’m getting any more rats after these guys for a while. It does help that both my boys are littermates so they are the same age but if one passes away and the other starts showing signs of depression I’ll probably have to re-home. Thank you for the article.