RatPalace.com - Pet Rat Care and Discussion

Fri Jan 27, 2006 3:35 am

I will be honest I am new to the rat thing on the Internet but I have had rats for a long time now (since I was 5 I think). I have had fun lurking around these boards and have come to learn that I am not as odd as I had thought.

I would like to ask a question to the group:
How dynamic is your rat’s cage environment?

My cage is a 29 Gal Fish tank (30x12x18) with a homemade cage top (30x12x19). For bedding they get a 3” layer of ground corncobs (two of my rats love to dig in it!).

As for the question asked, our rat’s cage gets rebuilt about every three days (mixing and matching a bunch of homemade toys). I can strip and rework the cage in less than 10 min, and do so quite often!!! I think I'm about to go broke buying zip ties and hemp rope but my kids love it and the rats like it too.

Anyway, I was just interested in hearing what others have.

Thanks,
JBC

Fri Jan 27, 2006 3:44 am

I have store bought toys because Im a shopaholic. I trade toys out because there just isnt enough room in my cage for all the toys at once (without giving the rats absolutly no room to move around.) Right now my cage has a bottom floor, and two half levels. The bottom floor is tiled, and has a wicker snuggle tube to chew on and sleep in, a leapin ledge in the open area, a wooden house and an igloo. The second half floor has a wodent wheel, and another leaping ledge, plus a bird cage stiff rope streached across the cage for climbin and a wooden stick perch for a bird cage inthere to climb on. The top floor has two hanging tubes, a giant rock for climbing and nail scratching, a third leaping ledge, two chinchiller peicies of granite for flooring, and a hanging wooden block toy with hold that used to hold almonds until they were wiggled out. Usually there is a jingle ball or two in there for them to play with, sometimes there are cardboard boxes, open tins full of tissue to sleep in, toliet paper tubes, and other disposable toys in there to make it fun. Also their food bowl which hooks to the cage wall, and water bottle. I change it up usually every good clean. When I take everything out to clean it, I never put it all back the same way.

Its blurry and far away, but here is a pic. You can see most of the toys now that you know what to look for

Click the pic to see it a little bigger.

I love to rearrange it, and rats love it too. I think my rats would go nuts if I didnt. My cage is undersized for the number of rats I have at the moment because of the fact that I just unexpectedly took on three more..but until I get a bigger cage, I think if I make it super fun as I can, they wont even notice. They dont really enjoy the space anyway, they all sleep together, and love the toys. And everyone gets along well. So my situation is good for them.

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

Fri Jan 27, 2006 3:58 am

I have three cages connected, and that gets changed every few weeks. It's mice for now and they get a lot more upset than rats do when I change things around, but I do it anyway to keep them on their toes, I think it's good for them. One thing I rarely change (and even then not by more than a few inches) is the placement of the food dishes and water bottles.

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Kate & the M.O.U.S.
If you saw a man drowning and you could either save him or photograph the event ... what kind of film would you use?
~ Anonymous

Fri Jan 27, 2006 4:19 am

As an example of rebuilding our cage. This morning the cage had 4 levels (one even with a built-in swiming pool) and a tunnel going out one side over the top and into the other side. Right now all levels and external tunnels have been removed and the cage top is full of a new tube maze we just finished making. As far as the food dish, it does not got used much. I hid the food around the cage and with the new maze i had a ton of new places to put it. The water usualy gets moved around when i rework the cage. They have usualy found it and are drinking by the time i have attached it to the cage. It's funny, I re-do the cage so much the sound of zip ties sets them off and running. It's like a pavlovian (sp?) starting gun for play time. They instanly (any time of the day) come out and start looking around, they know somethig is about to get moved...

Fri Jan 27, 2006 4:35 am

This is my cage, and I move around all their toys every few days. The picture is my cage when I first got it.

They have hammocks, tunnels, baskets, hidey houses,comf-E-cubes, igloos, ...you name it!!

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EMILY-------------------------------------------------

Rest in peace, Violet and Isadora. <3

Fri Jan 27, 2006 6:12 am

Normally I have 2 large cages, but now with medical problems, I am using 4 cages (the 2 big ones, and 2 small ones). The biggest one is 27"x27"x54"and has boxes, igloos, branches, PVC, a cardboard tunnel, a thick rope, and a big hammock type ferrit "ship".

The other big one is 27"x27"x36" and has hammocks, a rock, PVC, igloos, boxes, tunnels, and a bird perch.

The hospital cages only have boxes and tubes (1 box and 1 tube per cage), but has folded cloth bedding for the rats to burrow in, so that sorta counts as a toy.

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Rosie

* * *

I miss you Tut, Goldy, and Raoul Angel rat

Fri Jan 27, 2006 7:11 am

I switch mine around every time I clean which is twice a week. I don't normally move my water bottles around, but I do move food dishes from time to time.

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Lydelia and the Critters
... and now they are five Mr. Green

Kitties: Miss Kitty, Catbot
Ratties: Eugenuis, Ralph and Elliott
RIP Oliver -- We love you and we'll miss you!!! Cry

Fri Jan 27, 2006 7:19 am

I've progressivly replaced the "disposable" elements of my girls' cage (boxes, etc.) with permanent figures. For example, an old rat ball that they hated has now become a top-floor igloo stuffed with paper grocery bag material (used for shipping) that they love. A smaller hamster ball is a second-floor corner hideout that they never use, one of the SuperPet carriers that's too small for them now is a nestbox on the second level, they have an igloo and a Wodent Wheel on the ground floor, and...ahem..."facilities," climbing toys, and general toys are provided on every level.

I don't change the layout much aside from making those changes, because I found that once I put the current layout together, they much preferred it to the layouts I'd change it up with.

My girls are some of the rare ones that do not have a single hammock in their cage. Simply put, they hate them. Since I put the ball-hideout and a ferret tube in the top level, all they use the hammocks for are restrooms. They have one of those brown "ferret playpens" in the cage that they used to all sleep in, but now it's used as Nibbler's secret stashing room.

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-Ben
My rats: Squishy, Squee, and Nibbler
My dogs (at my mother's house): Lucy and Ricky
My cats (at my dad's house--in Florida!): Cleo (RIP) and Zima

Fri Jan 27, 2006 9:36 am

I also swich mine around every time I clean it. I think they like it, plus I get to see what seems to work well where. Plus I rotate toys and hammacks and such, just to keep in fresh and interesting.

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Loving Mum to my rattie boys, Zipper and Ty
Bestest Bud to Milly, the greatest horse ever