oh the cutiness!!!!

Well isn't he just a bundle of whiskers?

What a scruffy looking bugger. I've always wanted a brown rat for some reason, though I've never seen one in the pet shops around strangely enough. Anyway lovely rat <3

The wild colouring like Hoffman has is called 'Agouti'. They SHOULD be really common since its a dominant gene and their natural colouration so quite easy to breed (lots of people who don't research their genetics enough before breeding often end up with a whole litter of agoutis when they wanted something more 'fancy'), but apparently some people don't like agoutis because they look too much like wild rats, so they're not popular. But along with black, its my favourite rat colour.

I love agouti, too!! <3

I find that their temperament is a bit more wild than the other colors.

Also can you just put 'em in a container of water and expect 'em to swim? I've thought of doing that but obviously don't want to drown one.

Rats are naturally excellent swimmers.
However, if you want to get your rat to like water, never just pick them up and dump them in; that will scare the crap out of them and they'll probably avoid it forever after.
You have to let them discover it on their own, and be prepared for the fact they might not ever want anything to do with it.
I just put the base of a cage filled with water in their play area, and they can decide if they want to go in or not. That way, its not too deep either and they can touch the bottom.
If you put frozen vegetables in the water so they float, that can encourage them to go in too, as they like to fish them out.

Oh yeah, I'll have to try that. I've been bathing them as necessary so I don't think they'll take to it very well, but it's worth a shot.

I only bath my guys once or twice a year, or if they get majorly filthy from food or something. Genreally, they keep themselves clean and don't need our intervention. Old rats are the exception because they sometimes can't wash themselves well.
Hoffman hasn't had a bath yet, though Im thinking of giving him one tomorrow. Unfortunately, his temperament isn't the greatest, so I fear for my hands!

Yeah, I just retired the cage my first two came in. It has plastic shelves that act like basins and trap piss, which they then laid in and got all smelly. Not an issue now that they're in a proper wire cage. :3

There are a lot of temperaments that people apply to certain colours/varieties of rat, but they're pretty much all innaccurate. For example, siamese are meant to be rat aggressive and people aggressive, as are PEWs, and the poor dumbo has been reported to be both fatter and stupider than top eared rats, with some even saying they have a rat version of down's syndrome.
For some, there is slight basis in truth, in that the siamese rat WAS originally more likely to be aggressive, since when they first appeared, the petshops and BYBs just bred them like mad because they were a novelty, and no responsible breeding occured en masse until later. Hence, a lot of the early siamese were poorly bred so thusly had poor temperament.

Any of the variety specific temperament traits people report are almost certainly linked to the line the variety originally came from rather than the colour itself. Colour genes do not affect temperament in rats, but if the entire population of a certain variety was bred from two or three individuals of horrendous temperament, chances are the variety will have this characteristic until such a point where responsible breeders correct it.

One of my past agoutis, Josh, was seriously the most placid, lazy, friendly, loving rat ever. But Hoffman here does very much live up to the 'wild agouti' stereotype.

Yeah, I thought my experience may be unique. I have one who's rather rat friendly but not very people friendly, and he's got MAJORLY sharp claws in comparison with my other boys. He's sliced me open a couple times now and it's rather unpleasant.

The rest are mostly all the same except my American Blue who's bossy because of his size.

Have you tried trimming his nails?

Yeah, it's kind of tricky to avoid his quick since he fidgets to much. Usually it's just better to avoid picking him up unless I have to.

Wow, I guess that makes a lot of sense. Considering how unpopular wild rats are. Shame really, I really love the colouration. Also thanks for naming the actual colour, may help me in the future if I go looking for some.

Hoffman: y am i wet :C

Aww he's adorable!!

You've been taking good care of him since his rescue, I see. :>

I have, but he has to be castrated on friday as he will never be able to live safely with other rats otherwise :(

:3 I have a soft spot for dark-colored rats. They've always been the most friendly little rats, even when some of the BEWs and PEWs would rather just do their own thing.