Student trains pet rats to paint by guiding their paws with baby food and has made £1,000 selling their ‘paw-traits’
A student who trained her three pet rats to paint by guiding their paws with baby food has made £1,000 in a month from selling 120 of their ‘paw-traits’.
Ella Woodland, an 18-year-old A-Level student who lives in Droitwich Spa, Worcestershire, began getting her trio of eight-month-old rat artists, Rumple, Reid, and Gubler, to paint on 7x7cm canvases in March 2025, showcasing their fur-midable talent on mini easels.
After listing a few of the paintings on Vinted, one of her posts was screenshotted and shared on X, formerly Twitter, on March 3, where it quickly went viral, racking up over six million views and sparking a rat-naissance.
The unique side hustle has earned her just over £1,000 in total – with her earnings, she upgraded her rats’ cage and added two new members to her rat family on March 24, bringing her total number of rats to eight.
Ella told PA Real Life: “A lot of people have come up to me in school saying they didn’t like rats before and now they think rats and my paintings are so cool.
“They think the rats are so cute and everybody loves them now.
Ella, who doesn’t paint herself, first tried getting her rats to create their own artworks at the beginning of March 2025.
She was inspired after a friend sent her a TikTok video of a girl making paintings with her own rats.
“They’re free to roam around my room when they’re out of the cage,” she explained.
“So when they were out, I just got paper plates and I put a bit of paint on their feet and then I use baby food on my finger and they follow it across the canvas.
“I use water based, non-toxic paint to make sure it’s all safe.”
Her rats picked up painting “straight away” and she has even taught all of them to spin – she believes they are all “very intelligent” and even a whisker away from genius.
“Sometimes they can be lazy so I have to pick them up and help them a bit more though,” Ella added.
Over time, the rats became even more squeak-ccessful, and can now finish a piece in “just a couple of minutes”.
On a whim, she uploaded one of the pictures to Vinted, where she was already an active seller.
Ella was suddenly “inundated” with messages from people asking to place orders.
“I let people pick which rat they want to do the painting and what colours they want them to use,” Ella said.
With the profits, Ella has stocked up on more supplies, treated her rats to a bigger cage fit for twelve, and on March 24, even bought two new rats.
Her loved ones have been very supportive of her side hustle.
“My nan didn’t like the rats at first but she thinks it’s very funny now,” Ella added.
“All my siblings, they’re a bit shocked at how many people are actually buying them.
“My psychology teachers are obsessed with rats, because of there being so many studies on rats, so they think it’s amazing.”
Ella does not plan on stopping her quirky side hustle any time soon, and hopes on also listing the paintings on Etsy to generate even more sales to spoil her beloved pets even more.