Some of the most common questions we get here at the Georgia Rat Rescue is about cages o we've come up with a guide on Setting Up A Cage and how we use our fleece liner system along with ideas on inexpensive cage accessories & toys, cage cleaning, recommendations & helpful links.
What Cages Are Best For Rats?
We use a wide array of cages here at the GRR depending on the needs of our individual cases but the main cages we use (and highly recommend) are the Midwest Critter Nations. These cages offer a wide array of benefits like fully opening doors to allow easy access for cleaning and interacting with your rats, proper bar spacing and all metal enclosed design so as not to allow escapees or excessive bar chewing, a solid stand to sit on and add storage with wheels included, expandable add-on options to allow for unlimited potential room and design structure. While the cost of a CN may seem high at first (currently about $180 for a single model 161), it is well worth the price as these cages are built to last and can be refurbished and used for years or decades even. Many times you can find people selling them for a big discount used or even free so check your local sales listings first. Additionally while the CNs initially come with thin shallow plastic pans for the levels, you can purchase solid metal deep lipped Critter Nation Replacement Pans from Bass Equipment Co. that will extend the life of the cage, become chew proof and allow for use of lose bedding. Other cage okay options are the Martin's Cages (which sadly as of Aug 2021 are no longer in business), Ware Living Room Series Critter Home or the Prevue Pet Rat / Ferret / Chinchilla Cages. Please note the PetCo Rat Manor, All Living Things Rat Starter Kit cage, Midwest Ferret Nation, any size of the Ware Chew Proof Small Animal Cages, Kaytee My First Home Multi-Level for Exotics and basically most bird / hamster / mouse / gerbil / ferret cages are either not big enough for rats, have too wide bar spacing or just not suitable for rats to safely and healthily live in. We do not use or recommend for the main housing the use of glass aquariums, lab stacks, modified plastic bins, homemade or concerted 'furniture'.
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The Best Bedding For Rats
While there are a lot of options now on the market for rat bedding, we use only fleece and fabric in what we call the Liner System for all our cages and recommend that our adopters also employ the same method in theirs. There are multiple reasons for using this system starting with it's soft, comfortable, economically green and looks fun to more importunately giving your rats a dust free environment and living space so there's no respiratory irritants that can lead to myco flares, respiratory infections and pneumonia as well as eliminates the chances for mites and lice infestations typically brought in by even commercially packaged and sold disposable bedding like CareFresh and Aspen shavings. Please note you MUST clean your rat's cage, wash the fabric / fleece and replace it all with new at least once a week minimally for this to be a healthy bedding option! (and you should technically already be doing this anyways no matter what bedding you are using). We wash our fleece with order and dye free soap such as Castile Hemp Soap or All Clear and baking soda for order elimination. The cage items, pans, bars & panels are washed down with a mixture of bleach water (1 cap Bleach to 1 spray bottle) and K.O.E. (kennel odor eliminator) then rinsed well before putting any rats back in. If you would like to use a litter box then either use ripped up newspaper or hard pelleted bedding like Yesterday's News in the litter box only. Pee rocks also may help with encouraging liquid waste in the litter box, these are flat sandstone or river rocks put into the litter pan that the rats will pee on and smell like them. Alternative disposable bio options to fleece are newspaper, shredding paper and some of the newer lose beddings like Sani-Chips, Fibercore Odor Control Small Animal Eco-Bedding, So Phresh Crumbled Paper Small Animal Bedding or Softsorb but these will still contain some residue and dust ultimately and will need to still be frozen overnight to eliminate possible parasites. We do not recommend using Aspen, Pine or Cedar in any way or at any time.
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How To Use a Fleece Liner System
We employ a Fleece Liner System here at the GRR, this is a system of 'liners' that line the levels to provide a soft walking / living area for the rats with some chewing / waste protection for the underlying pans and what we call 'stuffing' for burrowing material used on top of the liners and in things like hammocks, hidey houses, cubes etc. We add as much in the cage as needed to where the rats feel comfortable and generally cover all exposed levels and ladders of the cage. We use the Bass metal pans in our cages so we will walk through how to easily and correctly pin down the liners on these pans first then go through how to use a pillow style liner for the original plastic pans the CN comes with. FIRST you want to cut a piece of fleece to the size of your pan with about 2-3 inches extra overlap all around, this will give you the needed for the lip. Next you want to push the fleece into the corner and secure it down with metal office binder clips such as the ones pictured, we use the extra large ones for the corners and Medium for the middle. These are also washed in bleach water then rinsed when you clean the cage, don't leave them long in the water as they will start to rust. For any of the notched middle level pans in double CN, you'll want to cut a diagonal cut on one corner of the fleece to allow for the notch and secure it accordingly also with the metal binder clips.
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NEXT Where the heavily soiled sleeping spaces are we use towels put above the half level liner and below any cubes / houses/ etc. This provides an additional more absorbent liquid waste catching layer that you can then change out more often then the rest of the liners to keep the ammonia levels down. The towels are secured similarly with office binder clips (as pictured) and attached to the bars to secure them in place. We then add more fleece and stuffing on top of that for comfort and burrowing. Generally you'll want to use towels that have small looping to help prevent toes and nails from getting caught. LAST (pictured last) is using 'stuffing' to allow for burrowing behavior, keeping them comfortable and warm, and to help decrease them from tearing up or chewing your plastic pans, hammocks, liners etc. The stuffing can be fleece bits or even t-shirts, ripped up sheets, cotton material, newspaper, blankets etc. We use stuffing anywhere the rats will want to hang out and burrow such as hammocks, in hidey houses, space pods, round the back corners of the cage, in cubes, in dig boxes, in toys or other accessories. Stuffing can also be disposable or washed and used again like your liners.
FINALLY for the half levels and if you have the plastic pans that come with the Critter Nation originally then you can still use the Fleece Liner system with only a few small modifications to what you use and the way you secure the liners. For the half levels and if you have the plastic pans we use a pillow case style fabric or fleece liner and the cheapest and easiest to find will be your basic pillow case. Simply put the plastic pan into the pillow case and drop it on the metal level holder. For the larger bottom pan, you can either sew a pillow case together or purchase already made liners online from Etsy, Amazon and even from Midwest themselves. For the ladders you can use already made ones or a large tube sock pulled over the ladder. This protects feet and tails from getting caught in the rungs and extends the life of your CN. There are many tutorials on how to use the pillow style liners, we like the walkthrough at The Playful Fox Blog. You can get fleece and fabric at a discount at JoAnn's, Goodwill, etc, look for the remnant section. If you don't have or want to use the pillow style liners then you can simply attach the fleece down with the extra large metal binder clips by folding the fleece over the plastic pan and locking it down with the clip (pictured 3rd below).
Cage Furniture & Accessories
There are many wonderful cage accessories and 'furniture' out there now, these are the ones we've had the most success with rats liking and using and a few general No-Nos. You can get really inventive and have fun with this with DIY items or you can purchase rat-specific already made items. Get creative and think outside the box! You don't have to spend a fortune to keep the cage and play pen fun and enriching. Here's some general products and ideas we use for our foster rats:
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Other Needs
As well as bedding, rats need other basic cage care items such as water bottles, food dishes as well as enrichment items like toys, houses, wheels. Here's what we use here at the GRR in our foster cages.
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