Correct terminology for male/female animals?

Question

How do I speak about my pet rats in Spanish? Firstly, do I understand correctly that "rata" means "rat" and "raton" means "mouse"? I also realize that "rato" means "a short while," so does that mean that even male rats are spoken of in the feminine gender in Spanish? For example, would I say "tengo una rata hembra y tres ratas machas"? And if I started to speak about "mi rata Miguel" do I then switch to the masculine or continue speaking of him in the feminine? I would never say "rata macho" would I?

Answer 1

Rata macho y rata hembra is a good way to differentiate genders. What happen here is: rata it's spelled with "a" at the end, therefore it's going to follow the rules of "a" being feminine. Una rata is correct. Ex Mi rata es muy bonita. If you change to Miguel, it will be Miguel es muy bonito. The feminine or masculine adjective goes with the subject. Remember when we use vestido = dress. Not because is a dress has to be feminine. We look at the spelling and we go by that ...so vestido is masculine eventhough female use it. Things or animals go by the spelling.. La zebra, la culebra, ....