Male rats are always a bit harder to adopt out for a number of reasons:
1) A lot of people wrongly assume that a male rat's urine smells way worse than a girl's since that is true of many other rodents.
2) A lot of people find the overly large "torpedos" beneath their tails unattractive and can't seem to get past that.
3) A lot of people assume that females are likely to be better natured because that is also true of some other animal species.
4) A lot of people want more than one and assume that you can't house multiple male rats together, as is also the case with many other
rodents.
5) It doesn't take long for the males to start looking twice the size of the females and people often think the females look younger and
cuter.
6) Many people fear that with males, scent marking is a given, whereas not all males scent mark, while many females do, especially when in
heat (every 4 to 5 days).
7) Unfortunately there is a lot of misinformation about all of the above on many prominant rat related websites.
8) Because of all of the above, more people start out with girls as their "first rats". Then when one dies and they want a companion for
the other(s), of course they want another female.
9) While it doesn't apply to rescue rats, in litters born to breeders there are often other breeders on the waiting list. Because the age
that females can be safely bred is so much shorter than that of a male, breeders also tend to be more likely looking for females.
This list courtesy of Lizzy of Sith Rattery
http://www.ratanist.com/
