How to Give Your Rats a Life of Luxury

If you want your rats to be happy throuought their life, follow these steps.

Step 1: Cage

Buy them the biggest cage you can afford, preferably a wire cage for better ventilation. Rats can easily escape from wide cage bats, so be careful! they will also climb on the cage bars, so
its preferable to buy horizontal bars. + its better to have levels in your rat's cage.

Step 2: Bedding

Say no to cedar or pine! its bad! it can cause illness and/or sneezing! buy Eco Straw for your rats,
it is 100% biodegradable, natural, and if your rats nibble on it, it wont do any harm, its recycled straw! Put about half an inch of bedding and make sure not to waste any.

Step 3: Food

Your rats will like almost everything you give them. They can eat your leftovers but they may get "addicted" to it and not eat its normal healthy food. don't feed your rats mixes of grains because it will pick out its favorites and leave all the rest. Dont's: peanut butter is terrible for them, they may choke. raw beans/potato/meat or bruxel sprouts/cabbage/green potato.

Step 4: Decorating

Making your own rat supplies (hammocks, tubes, ladders...) is a much greener and "funner" way to give your rats things to do. You may use wood ladders (they will chew on it wich is good for their teeth), rope ladders (braided), bowls (to snuggle in), hammocks... They will enjoy everything you make them. I made this out of a sock and cans:

Step 5: Rats

Females are more hyper and love to explore. They will sit still sometimes but they prefer to run and play. Males will lay down all day and come to you for a belly scratch. Any gender is fine. i was going to buy males, but changed my mind last minute and got 2 females! Males are also very dirty compared to females. And they grow much bigger. Make sure you get a healthy rat by checking its ears/nose for blood, and other various things you can google up. Dont pick a rat for its coating, pick it for it's friendlyness.

Step 6: Games

rats love to play. Give them balls, paper, and other various things you find laying around. fun games for your rats are: the ratty pinata: fill a ball of paper with treats, and hang it from the top of the cage. they will hit the ball t'ill the treats fall out!. Another thing i discovered is: crumple paper into a ball, and tie it to a string, drag it on the floor, and your rat will follow it around! you may play with your rat (wrestling with one hand) and flip it over a few times.. make sure you let it win!

Comments

[SimonA90]

"

Dont's: peanut butter is terrible for them, they may choke. raw beans/potato/meat or bruxel sprouts/cabbage/green potato."
This sentence is totally ambiguous. Are you saying those last six items are bad for rats just like the peanut butter is, or are you saying that they are good alternatives to the peanut butter? It does sound weird to me that you would say all meat is bad for rats.

[Loopy LaylaR]

Not a good cage sorry, wire shelves very bad for poor ratty feet!

[lirachan13]

The red stuff from the nose isn't blood is is called porphryin it can come from the nose, eyes and mouth. It is caused by Mycroplasmosis which is a bacteria that starts in the nose and ears and eventually makes its way to the lungs. Most rats have this its passed down from mother to baby. Good luck finding a rat that doesnt have mycro.

[HorseGirl774]

This is so helpful. There is this rat at the pet store and he is really old and he is unhealthy, but I love his personality and I know he would die of old age soon after I got him, but I really love him and I don't want him to die in the pet store because he has been there so long. Should I get him? Is it worth it?

[SIRJAMES09]

for their teeth, I would give them a small block of sugar maple wood....the must have enjoyed it, because it didn't last long. :)

[SIRJAMES09]

or corn cob works well too. :)
I agree with you, straw is bad for all small animals.

[SIRJAMES09]

or just go here & it does all the math for you. this will tell you EXACTLY how many rats you can have in the given space.

http://www.rattycorner.com/odds/calc.shtml

I found this earlier & thought I'd share

[Sharmie]

You should NEVER use a wired bottom cage or straw.
tut tut

[yoda1234]

Isn't a cage with wire that the rats have to walk on a bad idea? Everything I have read says that the wire is hard on the rats feet. I totally agree that the cage should be as large as possible. I have two rats and have a 6 foot cage for them. I also use Yesterday's News for litter. This can be bought in the section with cat litter and was highly recommended for any small animals. I haven't tried the hay yet but I intend to do so.

[AmberGailRavin]

Yeah, a wire bottom, or wire wheels can give your rat bumble foot, which can be really gross and get infected. A solid bottom is best. I have a 30x18x30 petusa cage. Figure I'll throw in this tidbit of information while I'm at it. The best way to find out if a cage is the right size for the number of rats you have is to take the dimensions, multiply them, and then divide them by 3456 and round DOWN. Buy the biggest cage you can afford, but that should be the maximum number of rats in the cage. For instance, my cage is 30x18x30, and 30 times 18 times 30 is 16,200 and 16,200 divided by 3456 is 4.6875, round down and that makes it 4. No more than 4 rats should be in my cage. That's a good trick to calculate how many rats to have.

[zipzapper859]

so say i want 2 rats.(witch i do) i would take 2 times 3456 and that equals 6912 so that is about what dimensions should equal multiplied together?

[tnielsenhayden]

That's the "Highrise" model from Martin's Cages, the same one I use for my own rodents. They've been very happy with it. The trick is to lay down old mousepads or other floor coverings on the wire mesh levels.

If your rodents are the kind of gnawers that will chew their floor coverings to pieces, make sure you use non-toxic flooring materials.

[jet_ski]

aw, you made me miss my lil rattie

[MacLean]

 did yours die in the winter like mine?

[Ranie-K]

It's just pining for the fjords!

[threemilechild]

 Also: If your rats are male, avoid giving them orange juice or many manufactured foods with a citrus flavoring. The specific culprit is d-limonene, which binds with a protein in their kidneys to produce carcinogens. Female rats (and most other animals) are fine with it, though.

[CarStalkerZ]

i have a brid not a rat but i like it any way

[CarStalkerZ]

bird i mean

[eggyeggyeggy]

i have a bird too and i am getting a rat in feb

[ratcrazy648]

its so beautiful!