# Rat enclosures



## elliottreed (Jan 9, 2008)

Ok, so this is more than always used for Lizard/Snake/Spider/Frog habi's and I love my rodents with my life.

Soooo as i'm sure most of you love them too, has anyone got any really busy/fun rat or rodent enclosures to post pics of?

Would love some new ideas on how to keep my 2 sets of 2 male rats busy.

GOGOGO!


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## elliottreed (Jan 9, 2008)

clearly noone has any good setups and they're all in breeder cages lol 
did think i'd have that response asking on a REP forum

but i shall post some of my own when we eventually get it sorted and they stop pulling it all down haha 
x


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## Tomcat (Jul 29, 2007)

My males are in a huge indoor guinea pig cage

I put loads of shredded paper in tonight, they had a party lol


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## fenwoman (Apr 15, 2008)

elliottreed said:


> Ok, so this is more than always used for Lizard/Snake/Spider/Frog habi's and I love my rodents with my life.
> 
> Soooo as i'm sure most of you love them too, has anyone got any really busy/fun rat or rodent enclosures to post pics of?
> 
> ...


 I wish I had got pictures of my old rat cage. You'd have loved it. It was a massive cage approx 4 foot long by 3 high and 3 wide and inside I had a dolls house in the centre. They used to run up and down the stairs, look out of the windows ect. I suppose you could use a castle or similar. I also had ropes tied across, plastic flower pots tied to the sides with cable ties and filled with straw and hide treats in the straw. And the baker would give me a stale loaf once a week and I would scoop a bit out of each and and the rats would eat a tunnel right through it.


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## elliottreed (Jan 9, 2008)

that's amazing fenwoman!
we have a knight's castle which my brother used to play with
soooo thinking of making a big run and putting the little boys in their own castle!

im sure they'd fight about who was king!

perhaps i could do something with lego too,.. the real industrial type, none of these little bits 
xxx


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## Gill (Oct 8, 2008)

my old ratty cage b4 they died... old pic aint kept rats in years


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## elliottreed (Jan 9, 2008)

awww!
i love the size of their bowl haha!!!
i dont use a bowl with mine, as it usually ends up on the floor anyway

looking good hun!
get more ratttiessss <3
xxx


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## fenwoman (Apr 15, 2008)

elliottreed said:


> that's amazing fenwoman!
> we have a knight's castle which my brother used to play with
> soooo thinking of making a big run and putting the little boys in their own castle!
> 
> ...


 I imagine the big lego would be good as you can wash any blocks which get pidded on and change it into something else occasionally to keep the boyz interested.
I made my own rat cage too out of 1/2" X 1/2" 16g twilweld which you buy by the roll for less than £40 for a 36 yard roll.
Moncasters Wire Products, Louth UK , Wire Products Online, Cages....easy to do really and the bits are held together with 'C' clips.

Honestly, the hardest bit is cutting the mesh. I just used a sheet of plywood on the bottom which I painted and covered with newspaper but I expect if you wanted to, you could easily make a custom built tray with sides if you wanted to use shavings.
You can also make different levels out of the mesh, of course covered with lino or something to stop bumblefoot. but for very little money and a little imagination you could have a cage bigger than anything on the market, at a fraction of the cost and made to your own design to make cleaning easier. The whole front of mine opened so I could practically climb inside to clean it.I had tree branches, flowerpots with straw, dolls house, big stale loaf, ropes, ladders, hammocks made out of old teatowels,(cheaper than specially bought hammocks) pouches made out of old socks, cardboard tubes from the carpet shop and sawed down to size. Let your imagination go wild.


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## Heavenlyhogs (May 15, 2008)

I keep pedigreed rats and am under mentorship...My first litter will be born around Christmas time...I keep mine in critter 3's.
Will post piccies when i have charged the digicam up.


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## Heavenlyhogs (May 15, 2008)

Their cages have all the usual...hammocks,wheels,rope toys ect and also have hanging tunnels,i put in kitchen/toilet roll tubes and small empty boxes to entertain them.


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## ChrisNE (Jul 13, 2008)

Heres the cage for my boys. Its 6ft tall and used to be just for them but the pair never used the bottom half because it was just too huge so i split it into two cages and the chipmunks have the bottom. The lads are still happy as mud in the top half. Its a massive cage and i'll just shove boxes filled with newspaper in, loo rolls, ropes etc. Both the lads are 600 grams now so don't do much in the way of climbing so to utilise the space in the top corner i added the shelving units and it worked so well i did the same with the chipmunks and even my OH's rabbits have a giant one to lay on. Their new favourite toy is that large multi-entrance rope tube thing. Its quite big so both rats can sleep in it but Cas's favourite place is still his penthouse while Troy loves his hammock. Hope ya like the pics.

The Cage









Cas on the penthouse level









Troy Hiding


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## PinkRobbie (Sep 19, 2008)

i once made a rat cage for my four dumbo's out of an old childs wardrobe it was excellent, i could of had ten rats in it it was that big and the best thing was about making it was i felt really good when i had finished it as i knew id designed it and tried to mimic a more natural environment as i could and they loved it.


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## fenwoman (Apr 15, 2008)

PinkRobbie said:


> i once made a rat cage for my four dumbo's out of an old childs wardrobe it was excellent, i could of had ten rats in it it was that big and the best thing was about making it was i felt really good when i had finished it as i knew id designed it and tried to mimic a more natural environment as i could and they loved it.


 I agree that you get a huge sense of achievement when you make your own cage. It's fun too. We all have different ideas about what an ideal cage will be like so by making your own, you can put in every feature you feel is important.
I have a large macaw cage sitting outside at the moment and I adapted one before into a fantastic rat cage by adding plywood levels and cutting a corner off each level so the rats climbed the bars like a ladder to get up to the next level. At the top you can hang hammocks and the like. Dead simple to make.
If anyone wants to make use of such a cage, it is free for the collecting.


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## ladyboid (Nov 25, 2007)

here is a piccy of my girls cage (top and bottom section) ... looks really messy at the moment , its due for a big change around and a few new bits and pieces but they like it.


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## ChrisNE (Jul 13, 2008)

Gorgeous rats! How dya keep so many rats in 1 cage! Do u not have to clean them out like every few hours!! After a week my 2 have made monuments out of there waste despite my spot cleaning and they smell like the underside of a decomposing pigeon dipped in the Tyne! After clean out day their cage (which is hhhuuuugeee) remains habitable to human standars for about 48 hours! And i only have 2 rats! I fill their dog bowl up 4 times a week and it all comes back out again. Yours must eat you out of house and home!


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## ladyboid (Nov 25, 2007)

yep they make a mess .. the hammocks are washed from time to time and they need a wash at the moment :blush: and the top cage floor (the one that they spend most time in) gets cleaned out every 5 days the bottom one every 10 days (they tend not to pee or poo down in the bottom.)

they eat a whole bowl of food every day between just the girls in this cage and they get tip bits everyday (ether a small treat or cooked food)

i dont worry about the smell because they live in a huge shed with my other rats and all my mice and the smell isn't that bad (i am used to it ..its a strong clean rodent smell lol.. unless its clean out day then it is a tad stronger.

i change the cage around every so often when they have finished destroying stuff but thats the fun of keeping rats.. you have to keep redesigning there cage 

i love the cage yours are in, i have been wanting one or two of them to replace mine soon because mine have made a new hole in this cage. its alot of money to find this close to christmas though so maybe in the new year they will get a new one.


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## Gill (Oct 8, 2008)

Gill said:


> my old ratty cage b4 they died... old pic aint kept rats in years


delive it or not there are 4 adult fancy rats in that cage.. hence the dog bowl lol... they just took what they want when they wanted and they never got fat


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## gaspanic (Sep 1, 2008)

heres mine. Only has two female babies in it (they both fit in that little orange house thing...

I will upgrade when they are fully grown though...and this one is getting a hammock etc soon...i did it all on my own out of a chameleon viv 

sorry about them being sideways :d


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## ChrisNE (Jul 13, 2008)

ladyboid said:


> yep they make a mess .. the hammocks are washed from time to time and they need a wash at the moment :blush: and the top cage floor (the one that they spend most time in) gets cleaned out every 5 days the bottom one every 10 days (they tend not to pee or poo down in the bottom.)
> 
> they eat a whole bowl of food every day between just the girls in this cage and they get tip bits everyday (ether a small treat or cooked food)
> 
> ...


Thanks! I love it and so do the occupants. Before this cage the rats were in a much much smaller cage for too long really so when i moved them to a new home i wanted it to be huge and i couldn't find anything bigger than this without converting a double wardrobe. They really are great cages and look good 2. Need to buy another 1 now for the chipmunks to move into along with a couple new female chipmunks! The batchelor boys are bored! :whistling2:

:mf_dribble: I'd so like to keep that many rats but i keep mine in the house and along with rabbits, dozens of gerbils, chipmunks and a kitten that can create some quite unholy smells for its size, I think people living in the same estate as me would begin to notice! lol Getting 2 more agouti does this week tho, for the missus! So maybe in 6 months i'll have a few more ratties! How many are actually in yours? I just spotted a few more bits of rat so i think i can see 10!! Must be very happy in such a big group. Think my lads get a bit lonely some times with just eachother. Always sitting watching all the other animals.


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## sleepylizard (Feb 20, 2008)

I kept my 4 males (brothers)in a Tommy 102T3 which is a 3 tier huge cage.
I've lost 3 of them in the past week due to various health problems and only have the one in there now, looks very empty.

It is filled with any box i find, they like Motza boxes, hammocks (i make my own), tubes, i also put in a Fisher price teapo treehouse thing which they liked to sleep in. I also bought lots of parrot toys which they loved to climb on.

If anone wants a couple of hammocks i ahve about 200 brand new ones that i made and definitely won't be needing them as i am not getting anymore rats once Ryan passes on. He has huge respiratory problems.

I notice in some of the cages that people are using woodchips for substrate, bad thing as awful for their respiratory systems. Use shredded paper or find a supplier of ecopet bed, which is cardboard squares.


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## elliottreed (Jan 9, 2008)

god guys
this thread has just got amazing!!
so many new ideas
and what absolutely fantastic ideas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ladyboid
i always know buying animals from you is 100% guaranteed that the little animals are fit, healthy and have had a great start to life, you have such amazing ideas !! and just wow

i love how a lot of you keep a lot of rats together like a little civilisation..

i am thinking of getting a cabinet of some sort, or perhaps even a parrot cage like the top one pictured for my 2 sets of rats.

i like the idea of the split down the middle

absolutely speechless
you guys are amazing!
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


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## ladyboid (Nov 25, 2007)

ChrisNE said:


> How many are actually in yours? I just spotted a few more bits of rat so i think i can see 10!! Must be very happy in such a big group. Think my lads get a bit lonely some times with just each other. Always sitting watching all the other animals.


these really love living in a colony  the bottom half is mainly empty as they really thrive on each others interaction and they all like where the action is up the top but they still have the option for piece and quite if they choose. 
i have 16 in that double cage but to be honest you wouldn't know... when i go to see them you would be luckily to see one until i get the cage open then more than half of them come running for me for cuddles :flrt:.


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## ladyboid (Nov 25, 2007)

elliottreed said:


> god guys
> this thread has just got amazing!!
> so many new ideas
> and what absolutely fantastic ideas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> ...


i do try my best to breed and keep lovely healthy rats... i enjoy seeing them happy : victory:
i like to think they have a good life .. they are really well fed, have the best bedding i can give them (shredded cardboard and soft nesting) are kept clean (apart from the dirty hammocks :blush and get lots of fuss if they want it.. the 1 or 2 that are not so happy to be handled dont get forced into it but still get there fair share of treats


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## quadrapop (Sep 20, 2008)

this isnt as impressive but this is for my boys, i made the bed, shelves and ladders myself.

















i swore i wouldnt have an animal in my room again, and then i became a reptile addict and i love my ratties too...this isnt a normal tenagers room ive been told ...too tidy


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## ladyboid (Nov 25, 2007)

lovely ratty cage  
i wish my kids kept there room as tidy as yours .. if they did i would let them keep there own pets in there room.


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## quadrapop (Sep 20, 2008)

thanks lol my animals come first so its getting to the stage i just have a bed and half a wardrobe haha.


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## ChrisNE (Jul 13, 2008)

Love how u've set up ur vivs in the corner like that! Looks mint! Did you buy a 4 ft viv and seperate it with a square of wood for the lower viv? I was gonna buy 2 2ft vivs but u've just opened my eyes! :notworthy: And yea..i'm an adult and i can't keep my room as tidy as yours! Well done!


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## quadrapop (Sep 20, 2008)

lol, so many people have asked this its just two 3ft vivs stacked and i used to have a corner desk there which i dismantled (since i left school) and used the top of it ontop of the vivs so it looks like a corner unit. im getting anther 3ft for exmas but will maybe block the sides in so it looks solid.


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## quadrapop (Sep 20, 2008)

oh i missunderstood u yes i just split the bottom for the two males.


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## ChrisNE (Jul 13, 2008)

:2thumb: Looks mint! Well done. Was just asking cos i have 2 corns i might put in a 4ft viv thats been split and i've got alot of T's that are gonna get huge, 4 species of birdeater, giant white knees, chacos blah blah. Anyway was thinking of buying 2 or 3 ft vivs and splitting and stacking them for the larger T's. The rest are gonna be in Exo Terras. Should look pretty good when its all done in a few years. Anyway cheers for the idea!:no1:

Chris


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## quadrapop (Sep 20, 2008)

no problem good luck.


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