Continuing with the Cross-Creature Interaction

I was going to try to come up with something more content-heavy to post this morning, but then I saw this video of a dog interacting with his three rat compadres and, well, what can I say? I'm a sucker for cute animal videos. 

Keeping a Clean House and Home

Cage base and accessories soaking in hot soapy water

As a general rule, it's a good idea to spot-clean your rats' cage daily and then do a thorough clean each week. For me, this entails a full soak and scrub of the cage base and any loose items, such as shelving or dishes, that can get wet. Then, once a month or so, I also thoroughly wipe down the cage bars to remove anything that may have gotten on them while Goma and Potato were running around.

There are a lot of different ways you can clean your cage and the method you choose to use should be based on whatever's most convenient for your living situation. For example, in the summer, I'll usually disassemble the cage outside and set the rats up an outdoor play area while I literally hose everything down. I put some mild dish soap into the cage base to wash anything that needs a deeper clean. In the winter and on cooler days, however, I tend to load everything into the bath tub for an easy wash and rinse. The latter is clearly the better choice for someone living in an apartment or without easy access to a yard.

The size of your cage is also a big factor. When Potato and Goma were still little, they had a much smaller cage than they do now, and it was easy enough for me to carry it outside or to the bathroom. Their second cage was taller, but still skinny enough for me to manoeuvre fairly easily. Now, though, their cage is much too large for me to easily move by myself - I can manage it, but I need some help if I don't want to get stuck in doorways or bang into walls. I imagine a large ferret cage or something similar would require a lot more work to move or take apart.

One great thing about taking everything out to get cleaned is that, on top of the cage looking a lot nicer for a while and your rats getting out for a bit, you can also take the opportunity to reorganize the overall layout. Changing your rats' environment is a great way to stimulate them for a while as they figure out where everything's been moved to. Although, whenever I clean my rats' cage, they always act like they've never seen it before, reorganized or not.

For more information and suggestions about cage cleaning, check out this page from Rat Guide.

Rat Addiction Comic

Title page of the Rat Park comic

If you recall my post about rats and addiction, you may like this excellent comic. It's based on the same study, but goes into much more detail than the original article I linked, as well as further expanding on the experiment's results. Not to mention that the art is great.

Buying the Right Size of Cage for Your Rats

One of Potato's and Goma's first outdoor experiences was aided with the top of their first cage

If you're a new rat owner, you may not be entirely sure what size of cage your rats need to be comfortable. For instance, when I first got Goma and Potato, they had a pretty small cage, but it afforded them plenty of room since they were still young and small (you can see the top-view size pictured above). After that, they were upgraded to a cage with more height (but slightly less depth) so they had more space to climb. Unfortunately, the lack of floor space made their new cage feel cramped, especially once they started to look more like adults. Currently, they have a good-sized cage, about three times the size of their original home, with enough to space to accommodate a new ratty room mate, just in case.

If you're not sure about what size of cage you should be buying for your rats, you can use the cage size calculator found here to get an idea of what to look for.