RatPalace.com - Pet Rat Care and Discussion

Mon Jan 23, 2006 5:49 am

Can anyone reccomend a website or a store that cuts/shapes to order peices of plastic or anything that I can put on the outside of the bars on the back of my cage to keep my wall clean? I know there are lots of posts talking about doing it, and I want to, but I just need some help getting started. Right now I have seranwrap duct taped to my wall behind their cage, lmao and it looks terrible. I figure whatever I buy, I will drill holes into the four corners so that I can attach it to my cage with like wire rope or something. My cage is set up so that the pas in inside the cage bars (it just slides out the front) so its not like I can just rest it in the back of the pan. I would have to attach it to the cage. Has anyone else done this, and where did you get the materials?

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Megan and the Hyper Hoppers. Blueberry and Butterfly, Naked Evee, and Chii.

Mon Jan 23, 2006 6:05 am

Well, I have heard of plexiglass being used to line the sides of cages. It usually can be purchased at most hardware stores, and if you have the measurements they can cut it for you in the store.

What you could do is basically have 4 pieces cut: 2 sides, one bottom (go go under the cage) and one back. Then, just attach the pieces together, place the plexiglass contraption in place, and it should hold on its own.

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Shanna
~ Serendipity Rodentry ~

Mon Jan 23, 2006 6:41 am

I'm not sure I'd cover four of the six sides, because you want air circulation through the cage. If all you're concerned about is the walls, you might consider getting some sheets of coroplast from a sign shop. Coroplast is used in a lot of signs--it's the stuff that looks like plastic corrugated cardboard. It's durable, fairly cheap, very light weight, and you can just staple it to the wall.

One negative I can think of about attaching it to the cage is that it would get rather dirty and have to be scrubbed clean regularly. OTOH, it is plastic so it shouldn't be difficult to clean, plus it comes in different colors....(please ignore my rambling, I'm just thinking out loud). I wonder if the rats would start gnawing at it. Rats are pretty amazing when they really want to chew on something.

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Victor, Bandit, and Sparrow's Sweeties: Neiko & Roo. Sparrow's Boys: Oliver, Arthur, and Rabskuttle. The fRAT Boys: Jim, Jack, and George.
Good night, Witter, Kono, Rat, Olie, Metro, Calle, Mr. Ratburn, Arwen, Leather, Ohana, Zoe, Misto, and Kanga.

Mon Jan 23, 2006 8:25 am

I get shower curtains from the dollar store, and tape them up on the wall behind my cages. It works well, and if they happen to get ahold of some and tear it apart, a replacement is only $1.

Mon Jan 23, 2006 8:51 am

Foam board might work actually, I dont think they would be able to chew on it because its so sleep and flat- they wouldent be able to get their teeth onto it, and I like the color idea, and it is very water proof. Those are the sheets of like foam board with a plastic like covering that you buy for school fair projects, right? It would be easy to get three huge sheets, cut them to size, then use a hole puncher to put holes in all four corners of each, and use metal wire to attach back, and two sides (not front or top so plenty of air flow.) and I could easily unwire to pull them off and clean. The shower curtain idea is good- except that we move our cage around alot and Id have to move the curtain with it. It would be nice to have something actually attached to the cage to move with it..hmm I think Ill go to office max tomorrow and see what they have.

Great Ideas all, Thanks!

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Megan and the Hyper Hoppers. Blueberry and Butterfly, Naked Evee, and Chii.

Mon Jan 23, 2006 6:01 pm

We use cardboard since it's cheap and easily replaced. The girls have proved to be more disgusting than the boys. LOL

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Shadow Brook Rodentry

Bridge Ratties: Samson, Wraith, Aiko, Kasper - I <3 you & miss you.

Mon Jan 23, 2006 8:08 pm

Yeh..my girls A. Pee backwards in a nice arc- which means onto my wall. And B. They poop in the corner, and then they use their hands to push the poop through the bars and out of the cage. They have a good idea, I wouldent want poop sitting around either, but my floor ;.;

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Megan and the Hyper Hoppers. Blueberry and Butterfly, Naked Evee, and Chii.

Mon Jan 23, 2006 8:31 pm

Megan - you need to rig up some kind of poop catching device - perhaps a gutter pipe attached at the base of the cage to collect the raisins? Or perhaps not. wink

I just hoovered them up or put the cage on a bin bag but mine generally don't pee out of the cage a whole lot.

My flatmate's girls would deliberately chuck poop halfway across the room before they were spayed - trying to get the attention of the boys! Blink

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Andy & The Rats

~ Darwin ~ Maisie ~ Ella ~ Zak ~

~ Finn ~ Malachi ~ Azrael ~ Newton ~ Charlie ~

Mon Jan 23, 2006 8:57 pm

I could do that, but like you said, they can get some air time with the poop too. Sometimes I find them halfway across the room and I wonder if someone was chucking them at me while I was walking by or something, lol. Little rascals.

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Megan and the Hyper Hoppers. Blueberry and Butterfly, Naked Evee, and Chii.

Mon Jan 23, 2006 9:35 pm

I had the same problem with my Martin's cage. What I ended up doing was getting some vinyl rug protector sheets at Home Depot and fixing it to wire floors, leaving a lip on every side so that it could bend up the side of the cage and prevent pee waterfalls. So far it's worked very well as long as I wipe down the levels quickly once a day or so

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~Mikaela and the RitterRatten~

Blaze~Shadow~Luna~Chinchilla~Malt~Merry~Pippin~Nim~Tiri~Cinder

Mon Jan 23, 2006 11:20 pm

I wasn't meaning to cover 4 of the sides of the cage with the plexiglass - I meant to make a barrier with room between the wall (and back of the plexiglass contraption) and the cage. There would still be adequate air circulation.

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Shanna
~ Serendipity Rodentry ~

Tue Jan 24, 2006 4:12 am

Wow, what a disaster..I tried the foam board stuff..first of all, I couldent get the darned exo knife or whatever to cut straight, I basically made a huge mess and quit about halfway through. I have the two sides and a back, and I got pissed and just started taping like crazy....so that it doesnt come off without potentially ruining it..and its not very pretty anyway *sigh*. Strike one. Next up to bat- plexiglass. Wonder if any websites will take plans/dimensions and make my 'box (top and front missing though for circulation), seal it all together and mail it to me. Or atleast the peices, and maybe I could hot glue them together. Hmm.

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Megan and the Hyper Hoppers. Blueberry and Butterfly, Naked Evee, and Chii.

Wed Jan 25, 2006 10:53 am

I get clear plastic paint drapes and clear packing tape. You can see pics of it in the tread I posted in Rat Mischief, etc. It's not very noticable, and I can hose it off in the shower or just wipe it down. I have a swiffer hokey I run thru the room daily to pick up poos and stray bedding. The plastic and tape were under $15, and the hokey was about $12.

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Rats~Janine, Madeleine, Cooper, Basil, Dolly, Kitty, Ilori, Theo, Elliot, Vladimir, Freya, Devi, Yoshimi, Nigel, Rosshalde, Faust, Tolkien, Caleb, Mira, Ivy, Nemo, Willow, Nikolas, Lucian & Linus
Mice~Molly, James & Will
Beardie~Cleo

Thu Jan 26, 2006 8:14 am

Why dont you just use some bath towels....put a few grommets along the top of towel to match the studs in the wall and install hooks on your wall...You could make a few and change and easily wash. That would be really easy!

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~~Dawn~~

Fri Jan 27, 2006 11:10 pm

I like the idea of posting something to the wall, but it leaves me with two problems. One, I live in an apartment, and although I havent done the best job so far, I need to be really careful with what I put in the walls. Its all wallpapered, so I cant go through and putty/repaint as you would with white walls before I moved out. That worrys me a little, and also- I move my cage around a lot, so My towels or shower curtain would end up hanging there randomly when the cage went to the bedroom for a spell.

The other half of the problem is the poop on the floor...I could do some sort of guttering situation as Andy suggested...but some of the poop gets kinda..catapolted aout of the cage somehow, and would not fall straight down into the poop catcher.

Right now my mess of a foam/poster board is being used..I sort of covered all the edges on it with tape, and then put it in place behind the cage- it is just a three sided (for both sides and back, no front top or bottom to it) board that Ive taped together and I pull it tight against the cage and tape it on..which means I have to rip the tape off to clean it every week (I clean the inside of the cage and the tray daily) and retape it back on..it looks ugly, and thats a lot of work. So for the moment Im set...no poop or pee are escaping the cage, they arent chewing on it, so it works..I would just like something that would be much easier to clean, and nicer looking. I think the rats also like the semi shade- so If I did some kind of clear plastic case around it, I would do the black sunglasses kind, so I could still see through it from the side, but the lamps beside the cage dont bother them as much.

I found a website that does cut to order plexiglass..Id buy a back peice, two side peices, a bottom peice and some plexiglass 'bonding' glue stuff, and Id have to glue it together at home once it was shipped and let it dry, bvut then it would be like a 'shell' to set the cage it..catching all poop and pee, and I would just have to pull the cage out of it to clean in it. I would still have no top or front for tons of ventilation and so I could see and get to them, but it would be great. BUT to have them cut, shipped, and to come in that sunglasses color, it would be 60 bucks. >.< Do you guys think thats worth it? I imagine it would last forever though. Hmm.

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Megan and the Hyper Hoppers. Blueberry and Butterfly, Naked Evee, and Chii.

Fri Jan 27, 2006 11:54 pm

What about the thin plastic sheets - the rigid stuff that you sometimes see backing notebooks etc? Could you get some larger sheets of that (it's only as thick as card), cut it to size and just zip tie it to the cage? I think you can score it also to fold at the corners to prevent leaky gaps.

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Andy & The Rats

~ Darwin ~ Maisie ~ Ella ~ Zak ~

~ Finn ~ Malachi ~ Azrael ~ Newton ~ Charlie ~