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Also, will chew holes in your clothes if you are posting on the internet when they decide they want attention.
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Oct 15, 2010 00:25
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One of my rats likes to climb up my sleeve and then out through my neck-hole, over and over and over again. She actually nibbled on my armpit once. Pro or con, you decide. The other night, I had a rat on each shoulder walking around the house. I stood behind my daughter and extended my arms forward, both rats ran out to my hands at the same time and stood on their hind legs. I yelled "I'M THE RAT MAN!" and they turned around, back to my shoulders. Pro or con, you decide! Oh and they dribble on me a little bit at least once during a play session. That's totally a con. Don't cave and settle on a pet store rat. Get one from a breeder, even if you have to drive far.
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Oct 15, 2010 05:17
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I need some help! My rats are about 9 months old, neutered, and I adopted them two weeks ago. One is a sweetheart but the other is really nervous and bites HARD. My dilemma is that the biter (Skippy) is sometimes cool with me and sometimes not. I try putting my hand in a fist and letting him sniff it, offering treats, giving him ear scratches and being all around gentle with him. But sometimes he will get riled up when I am cleaning the cage or trying to pick him up and he will bite me hard enough to draw blood. So I know I probably need to work on trust training him, but that would mean he does not come out of the cage until he is comfortable, and that could take a while. He has so much energy though and already goes bonkers at night chewing on the cage bars even though he has a wheel and a million TOYS to chew on. It keeps me up too much as it is, and I worry that if I do not have him out to play he will go berserk at night and I will never get any sleep  Any advice? (Can't put the cage in a different room, sadly.)
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Oct 16, 2010 01:01
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This thread needs more pics damnit This 'hammock' is a child's knitted hat that I hung from the roof of the cage for them to chill in since I had to wash one of their hammocks and didn't have a spare. They're used to having their hammock pointing in the direction of the TV, so when I put this hat in facing the other direction they corrected it by putting a hole in it so they could still look at the TV. And then when the hat became popular enough that two rats wanted to be in it at a time, they chewed another viewing window so two could look at the TV at once. I think that story there sums up why I love these guys. .. looking adorable helps, too.  Click here for the full 800x600 image. 
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Oct 16, 2010 14:34
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Dupree9973 posted:
It really isn't a big deal if you have to "settle" for pet store rats. The only difference between pet store rats and rats from a breeder is *usually* socialization. That's a big difference, but not one worth driving across several states or the country for. Dr. Spaceman posted:I need some help! My rats are about 9 months old, neutered, and I adopted them two weeks ago. One is a sweetheart but the other is really nervous and bites HARD. Rats that bite often and hard are usually aggressive rather than truly fearful, especially in males. Does he bite even when he's out of his cage, or just when he's in it? If it's just when he's in it, it may be territorial aggression and that can be fixed to an extent, but if he bites at random, that may never really stop. If that's the case, I would try forced socialization (put him in a hoody pocket or on your shoulder and carry him around with you for an hour or so twice a day) and see if it helps, but in my experience, males who bite hard enough to draw blood at random kind of never stop completely. If it's only when he's caged, make sure that when he bites you, never draw your hand away, flinch, or react in any way even if you're gushing blood and do NOT remove your hand from the cage, as that will just reinforce to him that biting works and he should do it. Leave your hand there, keep touching his stuff, keep messing with things, until he stops coming back to bite you. Easier said than done, but working with chronic biters sucks and that's part of it. Good luck, I don't know a ton of people who have had success getting chronic biters to stop 100%, but with a lot of work you can reduce the frequency of bites.
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Oct 16, 2010 15:19
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Superconsndar posted:It really isn't a big deal if you have to "settle" for pet store rats. The only difference between pet store rats and rats from a breeder is *usually* socialization. That's a big difference, but not one worth driving across several states or the country for. All three of our rats are pet store rats, and we went ahead with getting them after hearing everyone talk about what a dumb idea it is, because there are no breeders remotely in our area. All three of our girls are friendly, smart, and able to free range without getting into too much trouble. We took them all to the vet for checkups and our vet was amazed at how great their respiratory health is. Maybe they'll end up being tumor machines in their older age, since you don't get a health history guarantee with pet store rats the way you do with breeder rats (supposedly), but in the meantime I'm glad that we rescued the three of them from their tiny Pet Smart bins. Our hairless was actually there for a month after we got the first two, and we felt so horrible about her still being there that we scooped her up too. We would have gladly taken rats from an actual rescue as well, but there weren't any of those in the area either. I know buying from pet stores is considered supporting their horrible breeding practices, but at the same time I don't think the poor ratties who go through that system deserve to be left in the store forever without loving homes. 
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Oct 16, 2010 15:32
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squidtarts posted:All three of our rats are pet store rats, and we went ahead with getting them after hearing everyone talk about what a dumb idea it is, because there are no breeders remotely in our area. All three of our girls are friendly, smart, and able to free range without getting into too much trouble. We took them all to the vet for checkups and our vet was amazed at how great their respiratory health is. Maybe they'll end up being tumor machines in their older age, since you don't get a health history guarantee with pet store rats the way you do with breeder rats (supposedly), but in the meantime I'm glad that we rescued the three of them from their tiny Pet Smart bins. Our hairless was actually there for a month after we got the first two, and we felt so horrible about her still being there that we scooped her up too. We would have gladly taken rats from an actual rescue as well, but there weren't any of those in the area either. Between breeding, rescuing, and just owning rats in general I've had literally thousands from every background and situation imaginable pass through my hands, and yeah, there really is marginal difference in the health of pet store rats vs. rats from a breeder. That's a very sad and stark thing and it shouldn't be that way, but it is. Temperament is more of a crap shoot but if you look around you can still find very friendly pet store rats- in fact, I'd say I've seen more aggression and temperament issues in show lines than I have from pet store/rescue rats combined. Definitely more cancer, too.
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Oct 16, 2010 15:55
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Superconsndar posted:It really isn't a big deal if you have to "settle" for pet store rats. The only difference between pet store rats and rats from a breeder is *usually* socialization. That's a big difference, but not one worth driving across several states or the country for. You're right, pet store rats can obviously still make great pets, and the length someone is willing to drive is relative. I've only ever had one from a breeder, and multiple rats in the last 20 years from pet stores. The one from the breeder was just a better animal in every way. Miles apart behaviorally from any I've had from a pet store. Could be specific to these rats, but next time it's worth a day trip to me to go the breeder. Family members thought I was insane for doing that, but the difference between the animals is evident to everyone that sees them.
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Oct 16, 2010 15:58
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Dupree9973 posted:You're right, pet store rats can obviously still make great pets, and the length someone is willing to drive is relative. While I'm glad to hear getting pet store rats, if I have to, is at least not the end of the world, I have been keeping my eyes peeled for any more viable options. There still seem to be no operable breeders in the state, and no up to date rat rescues either. Only one I found had a 2010 copyright notice on it (as opposed to 2004/2006), but they haven't responded to any messages I've sent. Petfinder has a few rescues taken in by a ferret rescue, apparently, but I'm not finding much information about them anywhere else on their site/facebook account. Either way, it only really matters what I find when I'm ready to actually bring a couple of ratties home, but I don't really have the capabilities to make a big trip. Something like driving to Dallas or Kansas City (the only two places with nearest breeders I could find) would be more than a day's trip for me EDIT: What do people find to be good cages? I keep looking for something that looks big enough but also has (relatively!) easy cleaning but it's hard to know what's good and what isn't. Would something like the Martin's aquarium toppers work? I've read that a 10 gallon tank isn't sufficient for a rat but with a two-floor topper or something like that on it, I feel like it'd be easier to clean because of the tank and still have a decent amount of room in it. mareep fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Oct 16, 2010 |
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Oct 16, 2010 16:54
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Superconsndar posted:Rats that bite often and hard are usually aggressive rather than truly fearful, especially in males. Does he bite even when he's out of his cage, or just when he's in it? If it's just when he's in it, it may be territorial aggression and that can be fixed to an extent, but if he bites at random, that may never really stop. If that's the case, I would try forced socialization (put him in a hoody pocket or on your shoulder and carry him around with you for an hour or so twice a day) and see if it helps, but in my experience, males who bite hard enough to draw blood at random kind of never stop completely. He's only drawn blood in his cage. It seems more like a territorial thing but I'm not really sure. When he is out for play time he sometimes will come up and mouth my fingers, but I can't tell if he is trying to play or being aggressive. I had him out for a long time yesterday and he was much more mellow at night, so I will follow your advice with the forced socialization. I just glad he has an adorable brother that gives me kisses 
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Oct 16, 2010 19:46
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dog days are over posted:This thread needs more pics damnit I bought a fleecy hammock for my naked rats thinking it would be nice and warm for them. They customised it much like your two:  Click here for the full 651x434 image. That is them inside the lining instead of on top of it. With them it was the first time I had owned female rats and also the first time I had naked rats. They were super affectionate, playful and just downright awesome in every way. Kinda pervy as well, they had a thing about skin contact. Sitting under my jumper or shirt was not good enough if I had a t-shirt on underneath, they would do everything in their power to get under the t-shirt. Then poke their heads out and groom my face. They were happy to do this for hours while I watched TV. It kind of sounded like this: *thwp* *thwp* *thwp* (licking sound?) *chatter chatter* *crunch crunch* as they bruxed away. I miss them Here is a group shot (left to right: Isobelle (the Ghost Rat), Selena & Tabbi):  Click here for the full 720x361 image. I have two boys at the moment:  Finn  Click here for the full 656x344 image. Sander They are incredibly playful, I can get them wrestling my hand and popcorning about easily. ElectricSquire fucked around with this message at 19:45 on Oct 27, 2010 |
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Oct 16, 2010 20:42
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Been quite a while since I posted here...my 2 girls have been doing pretty well for a while. I noticed a tumor on one a while back and had the vet remove it. It seemed to be gone these last 3 months, but just this last week, I noticed the same spot blow up quite quickly. I'm kinda nervous about having the vet go into the same area again, but I suppose it'll have to be done...
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Oct 18, 2010 06:49
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Man. Gabe is such an rear end in a top hat. He is Boss Rat, everybody knows that around here, but he still feels the need to randomly push his buddies out of the hammocks/baskets/under the towels/wherever they are chilling and just be a big dick. Usually it's Roscoe that's the victim, and he screams bloody loving murder no matter what. I've watched it happen, Gabe doesn't touch him at all. Roscoe just screams his head off. If I open the cage door he lunges out onto my shirt like FINALLY I AM SAVED. So Gabe slept in the former maternity tank I have set up for just such an occasion. Because I hate "rescuing" Roscoe at 4am. Now he's apologizing! I'm minding my own business, trying to take a poo poo in peace, and he keeps putting his paws on me and demanding to be petted. If I don't reach down and oblige him quickly he'll jump up onto my (bare) thigh with his needle claws and launch onto my shoulder and stick hisq1111111 nose in my ear OR SIT on mty yerrrr... keyboard. RATS  
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Oct 20, 2010 14:44
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This thread makes me miss my rats so much  Now I have a Sugar Glider, and he is a dick who is dead set on never bonding with me. If he wasn't so cute...
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Oct 21, 2010 20:29
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 My new rat, Zinc He's neutered and huge and his ears make him look totally derp but he's very sweet. The girl I got him from said she originally rescued him from a bad situation but she didn't give any details.He was really shy and just... slow... at first. Like slow-moving and he didn't know how to sit on shoulders. After a brief quarantine (his previous owner had quarantined him and was really on the ball about vet checks so I didn't think a whole month was necessary) he met the girls and I think they're doing him a world of good; he actually runs now! He's easily 2-3 times the size of either Tegan or Moose and eats constantly to the point that Moose will sit on the food bowl until he shoves her off. He went on his first outside shoulder ride two days ago and didn't fall off like he had been doing, although he did pee down my boyfriend's back. Tegan!  Moose!  T&M's previous owner said one of their parents had a rex coat and that's why theirs is kind of patchy/semi-curly. It's really noticeable next to how shiny and smooth Zinc is. However, he smells much worse. Boy-rat musk
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Oct 22, 2010 17:33
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I have a question about fancy mice that I feel you guys are the most qualified to answer (mice, after all, are just smaller and more spastic rats). This past spring I bought 2 female mice, one gray (named Grix) and one albino (named Bijou). Both were just a few weeks old and very sweet and friendly, and neither the least bit afraid of anything. Bijou was never really healthy (she was albino after all) and a couple weeks ago I found her dead under their food bowl. Not wanting Grix to be all alone, I went back to the place I got them originally to get her a new friend. Unfortunately, the pet store had stopped carrying fancy mice, so I went to the other reputable pet store in the area and brought home a young black mouse I named Nox. Now here's the problem I'm having: Nox is freaked out by EVERYTHING. She never bites or anything when I try handling her, but it's nearly impossible to catch her and she looks distressed when come near the cage. Otherwise she seems happy and active and gets along great with Grix (she's down to a healthy weight as well). I think she was never handled at the pet store and the girl who was in charge of the small pet section was surly and more interested in her phone than helping me. I really want Nox to be happy in her new home and not be terrified of being handled. How do I get her comfortable with me? Obligatory photo of my girls:  Click here for the full 684x456 image.
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Oct 22, 2010 20:29
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Blackish Sheep posted:I really want Nox to be happy in her new home and not be terrified of being handled. How do I get her comfortable with me? I know nothing about mice but I assume it can't really hurt to try what works with rats? My girls were skittish at first but as they're from a breeder and were used to regular handling it didn't take long to calm them down. First of all I'd slowly put my hand in the cage and make a fist (to protect myself from potential bites) and let them come inspect and sniff after cowering for a bit. I don't know if mice have the same curiousity drive as rats do so that method might not do anything for them, they may just cower until you go away. I also used a bit of forced socialisation, in that I removed everything they could hide in so they had no option but to be exposed for a little while. Then I started putting dabs of fruity yoghurt on my fingers, because it's a treat that they couldn't grab and run away with, so they were forced to stay near my hand if they wanted the treat. Don't try to pet the nervous mouse or anything yet, movement will scare her so just get her used to your hand being there and being the bearer of a nice treat that they get only from your fingers and nowhere else. Try to get into the habit of bringing a little treat with you every time you pass their cage and give it to them by hand, don't just drop it in there with them. Also make sure you don't give them any food through the bars, always open the cage, otherwise they'll assume that fingers poked through bars are food and nip. First thing any guest at my house does is stick fingers through the bars to pet the rats so it's a good thing they don't associate that with food! I guess the general idea is that you associate your hands with nice things. Do you free-range the mice? I don't know if people do that. By free-range I mean do they get time out of their cage to play around? If so (and you probably do this already if that's the case), when playtime is over put them back in the cage yourself rather than letting them wander back in on their own. This way they associate your hands with safety as you are putting them back in their home. Uhhm what else.. oh, when she's feeling a bit less skittish around you (and it could take a while since she's a pet shop mouse), during free-range time (assuming you have it) just pick her up and hold her for a bit every now and then, then put her back down. Do this a few times every playtime so she gets used to it, and when you put her back down maybe give her a little treat if she hasn't struggled or something. You said that it's 'nearly impossible to catch her', which sounds to me like you're chasing her with your hands trying to get ahold of her. This is going to scare the bejesus out of her so try not to pick her up at all until you've gotten her confidently taking treats from your fingers. You want her to come to your hands willingly so you don't have to trigger her prey animal fear chasing her around trying to grab her. Sorry for the wall of text, these are pretty much the methods I used and like I said I'm not entirely sure how they'd work with mice. Those are some super cute meeces and I hope you manage to get Nox a bit more confident.
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Oct 22, 2010 20:56
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Thank you! I've been told that rat advice works just as well with mice. I really can't find many people interested in owning them. I love rats but I just don't have the room right now. I've had to chase her around in order to clean their cage. I fill up the tub and let them go for a little swim while I clean. They look so cute swimming! Out of the cage time for the more gregarious Grix is at least several times a week. I have some cats so I have to be careful, so we hang out in the computer room with the door shut and her on my head. The cats love the mice. They watch them like TV but don't bother them too much, thankfully. They have a really kick rear end cage set up with lots of goodies and things to climb and chew. The yogurt thing sounds like a great idea! I'll definitely try that and report back how that goes. I'll accept any and all advice offered!
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Oct 22, 2010 21:08
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Your advice worked great! Tonight when I changed their bedding I managed to coax Nox onto my hand with some peanut butter. She and Grix sat on my hand for a good while nibbling it off. So cute!
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Oct 23, 2010 05:26
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If you want to rescue a rat, you could buy one from a reptile store like I did. I'm looking to upgrade my rat's living quarters, does anyone have any recommendations on cages or ones to avoid?
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Oct 23, 2010 16:41
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Shadow0 posted:If you want to rescue a rat, you could buy one from a reptile store like I did. Ehh. You're still paying money to the store to continue breeding/feeding so that's not really a 'rescue' in the correct definition. It is if you can get the store to give you it for free. quote:I'm looking to upgrade my rat's living quarters, does anyone have any recommendations on cages or ones to avoid? Martin's cages are still awesome, but I personally feel that the Critter Nation can't be beat in terms of the best ethical housing. It's cheaper/prettier than a Martin's of the same size, and the amount of interior space is awesome. Plus cleaning is a breeze and it's easy to roll outside for hosing off. IMO, it's the best cage out there. Here's mine (keep in mind I opted for the double decker, but the single decker is just as good):  Man, I need to take more pictures of the boys. In the mean time, here's Iago, my Dumbledore rat. 
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Oct 23, 2010 17:45
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Holey moley, that is a living space. I need to spruce up my rat's cage quite a bit, could I ask how much time/effort you need to put in to keep that cage habitable? Seems like there would be a lot of little pieces and cloth to clean.
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Oct 23, 2010 18:19
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Ohh man I don't do nearly as much as that picture implies; that was back when the boys were babies and were better about always pooping in their litterboxes. I've switched to Carefresh in the bottom pans now, and I keep it from going everywhere by using cheap plastic siding (it was actually free for me-I found them on the street and bleach washed 'em!) zip tied to the sides of the cage. I'd say I give it a full cleaning once a month, and change out the carefresh once every two weeks. It's big enough that the mess gets distributed slowly over time, and it'll go for a month without being really 'messy' to the point where it smells. But I do do occasional 'drive bys' where I scoop out a litterbox or change a particularly smelly hammock- those happen about once every 2-3 days. It is awesome.
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Oct 23, 2010 18:27
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We have a Martin's 680, but I've been wanting a little more space for our three girls. That has me seriously considering a CN, especially since the ladies are pretty good about using the litter box (or at least they were until I switched to Care Fresh and they got lazy).
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Oct 23, 2010 18:36
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Captain Foxy posted:Here's mine (keep in mind I opted for the double decker, but the single decker is just as good): Wow, that's awesome. I wish I could spoil them like that. I want a smaller cage though (at least for now). Right now they're in an aquarium so I really want to get them an actual cage. But I'm leaving for study abroad in a few months for six months so I'll have to find someone to take care of them for me soon and a cage that big I won't want to ask someone to house for me for six months, if that makes sense. So I was wondering if any of you have smaller/medium cages you'd recommend? I only have two rats, by the way.
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Oct 23, 2010 18:41
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I think I might've asked this before, but thought I'd give it another go! Has anyone ever DIY'ed another door onto their cage? I have a ferplast jenny rat cage that's a great size but has poor access, and am wondering if I can put another door on it/enlarge the door on the front without screwing up the whole thing! I got the cage cheap secondhand which is why I didn't mind so much about the access problems. Man it's excrutiating waiting to get my girls! December 4th can't come soon enough. :]
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Oct 23, 2010 18:46
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Shadow0 posted:Wow, that's awesome. I wish I could spoil them like that. I want a smaller cage though (at least for now). Right now they're in an aquarium so I really want to get them an actual cage. But I'm leaving for study abroad in a few months for six months so I'll have to find someone to take care of them for me soon and a cage that big I won't want to ask someone to house for me for six months, if that makes sense. So I was wondering if any of you have smaller/medium cages you'd recommend? I only have three.  The one in the picture is the double-decker model; I'd recommend the one level model which is maaaaybe $150 if you buy it new +shipping, but I've seen them offered used on Craigslist, Ebay, Amazon, etc for much less. My friend got hers used off of Craigslist for $50. If you want portability, there's also Martin's cages, like I suggested, but those are also going to be big and bulky if you really want proper housing, and are probably around $80-90. Proper housing for rats isn't really cheap, because all the pet stores sell tiny little crappy cages for less, and so online distributers have a monopoly right now which sucks. I recommended the CN 'cause I'm lazy and I like that I can easily take it apart or wheel it from place to place if I need to, and I imagine the one level model would be even easier than my monster. Also I see them selling used a lot.
Captain Foxy fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Oct 23, 2010 |
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Oct 23, 2010 18:51
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After seeing how much someone else's rats loved a knitted hat, I sacrificed mine to the rats. Mom, this $1.50 hat is much better than any hammock you have ever painstakingly sewed for us! Oh, and September 10 was Trudy's first vet appointment about her neck abscess. She's been back 5 times since then because it keeps healing up then migrating to a new spot nearby. She's scheduled for surgery on Monday because the vet thinks it's getting dangerously close to her lymph nodes, on top of being stubbornly non-healing.  I know surgery is risky, but I really wish we had done it earlier instead of paying $100 for every non-effective vet visit before finally going through with it anyway.
squidtarts fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Oct 23, 2010 |
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Oct 23, 2010 22:18
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Hat hammocks are a great idea, I may have to try that.
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Oct 23, 2010 22:20
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Chakattack! posted:I think I might've asked this before, but thought I'd give it another go! Has anyone ever DIY'ed another door onto their cage? Yeah I have done it on two cages now, quite easy to do. I sometimes buy dirt cheap cages when I see them in charity shops or at car boot sales for the plastic bottoms (to be used as extra levels in my other large cages). I only ever pay a couple of pounds or so. Anyway, that leaves me with the top wire parts as surplus which can be chopped up into a variety of things using my Dremel like rotary tool (or hacksaw) e.g. ladders, hang out platforms, rattie proofing around stuff etc. The doors can be taken off of these donor cages easily as well, just bend the hinges back and pop them off. Measure up the door to the cage you want to use it on, cut that section out (but leave a cross member for the hinges to go on and also one for it to latch onto), put the door on and bend the hinges back in place. File down sharp edges from the cutting OFC  I hope that makes sense, it is easy in practice. If you don't mind what it looks like you can even MacGyver huge doors and use zip ties as hinges. For keeping it shut I improvised a latch system with some split rings and clip keyrings like these. Worked out awesome for my boy's cage that only had one (!) door on it at the front and right down the bottom. You could use the same principal but find some sturdy covered wired mesh in a DIY / garden centre etc. to use instead of a donor cage. Probably a lot easier to work with as well
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Oct 24, 2010 00:27
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I had no idea that hats would turn out to be such popular hammocks for my rats, they really do like them and they're ridiculously cheap for me too. I can pick up hats like this: for £1 each. I have a few stashed that I intend to sew a bit of fleece into to make it a bit warmer for the winter, and so far they're really excellent replacements when I'm washing their proper hammocks. I also bought them a hammock on eBay which is like 4 tube hammocks that connect to make a kinda chamber, and wow they adore it. I picked it up because I thought a proper enclosed hammock would be nice for them for winter, and it gets their seal of approval because they pretty much live in the rat bunker now. If they're feeling a bit too warm they half hang out of the tunnels or sleep on top of it. I got a little corner hammock at the same time as this one and they've already added holes and ripped up some fleece they didn't approve of on that one, but the rat bunker is still pristine because they love it.
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Oct 24, 2010 17:23
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ElectricSquire posted:Yeah I have done it on two cages now, quite easy to do. That is such a good idea! I never thought of taking the doors off another cage, makes a lot of sense. Thanks so much! I already have a hamster cage I picked up super cheap (£3 I think) for popping them in whilst I'm cleaning their cage, I'll keep looking for more. I really appreciate your advice. :} Whilst I'm here - rats and the cold! I'm living in a pretty cold flat at the moment (I'm in Scotland), you can see your breath inside kind of thing, how are rats with a not-so-warm environment? The reason it's so cold in my flat at the moment is because we haven't switched the heating on (cheapskate student types), which will no doubt have changed by the time I get my rats, but it's a really old flat with high ceilings so it's going to be hard to heat properly, and too expensive to have it on all the time. Will my ratties be ok? They'll be away from draughts and we won't be leaving windows open or anything, but I'm still a little worried. If it's a problem I'll have them live in the kitchen during winter, which is the warmest room in the flat. Not sure how flatmates will feel about that though - although it is a massive kitchen so they can be far enough away from food preperation areas.
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Oct 24, 2010 19:00
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Chakattack! posted:I really appreciate your advice. :} You're welcome For ratties and the cold I have some tips. I use a chopped cardboard bedding like the ones on this page and this one. I get it from an equestrian supply store near me, £6.50 for a huge bale that lasts months and months. Here are some manufacturers/suppliers: Greenbale, Hill Meadow Ltd & Ecopetbed. My rats past & present love it for building nests as it has all sorts of lengths & widths of chopped pieces e.g. they take the longer bits to make a dam sort of thing at the entrance of their house then push up the bedding against that to make a bowl type nest. If I give them scraps of old (washed!) clothes & fleeces they will line the nest with that. Anyway they seem cosy enough on that bedding as I guess the cardboard is quite insulating and the bits of clothes/fleece on top help as well. The hat hammock (hatmock?) idea is great, they would probably love that as well I'm going to try it with mine for sure!When I had my naked rats during a particularly cold winter I reused a heat pad from my reptile keeping days to give them a little extra warmth. I hot glued it to the bottom of the cage on the outside then insulated it a bit. It was lowish power so didn't penetrate the thick plastic on the bottom of the cage that much but it was very subtly a bit warmer in that area in the cage after a few hours of testing. I gave them a few houses on different levels of the cage so they weren't forced to use the heated area but they built their nest over it so I guess it was a success Might be worth investigating? You could probably pick up a second hand heat pad at a carboot, local ads. etc. for not much.
ElectricSquire fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Oct 24, 2010 |
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Oct 24, 2010 20:19
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Since there's no real place in PI for us mouse owners, would you dear goons in the rat thread accept me into your fold? Super awesome mouse home:  Click here for the full 855x570 image. Almost everything in here was found, re-purposed, or made by me. I live near a small beach where I find tons of driftwood which I oven-sanitize and give to my mice (and sometimes I give some to my friend who keeps birds and reptiles). I never bother with non-cardboard nest boxes since the girls seem to enjoy shredding them. Got the hanging bird toy there at Wal-Mart for $1. I have a bunch of thick hemp for making climbing things and a pile of extra drift wood that I need to get rid of if anyone wants any. Plans in the works: I want to get one of those wire cage extensions and double the size of their terrarium and get a third mouse.
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Oct 25, 2010 02:34
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Blackish Sheep posted:Since there's no real place in PI for us mouse owners, would you dear goons in the rat thread accept me into your fold? Well sure, but you do know there is the Rodent Megathread, with plenty of other mouse owners, right?  Thanks for sharing the awesome mouse house, though.
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Oct 25, 2010 05:17
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Captain Foxy posted:Well sure, but you do know there is the Rodent Megathread, with plenty of other mouse owners, right? Well, seems I'm an idiot How did I miss that??
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Oct 25, 2010 08:31
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Your inferior small rodents are not as popular as our fabulous pee-leaking larger rodents plebe~  I dunno, doesn't get updated as much, drops a couple of pages. Bump it up I love meeces!
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Oct 25, 2010 08:34
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So I adopted a 1 year old female rat from the humane society last weekend, a new companion for my current rattie (her sister died last week of heart failure). I never thought I'd have the opportunity to say "my new rat may be a hermaphrodite". Firstly, she's unusually large for a female rat, and solidly built. Secondly, I took her to the vet for a physical yesterday, and although he and I could see that there were no testes (at least not visible ones), he said she was interesting because she had "somewhat ambiguous genitalia". 
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Oct 26, 2010 15:43
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Part of Everything posted:So I adopted a 1 year old female rat from the humane society last weekend, a new companion for my current rattie (her sister died last week of heart failure). I never thought I'd have the opportunity to say "my new rat may be a hermaphrodite". I once had a male pet store rat with nipples. He always stayed the size of a smallish female, had soft female fur (no course guard hairs, or buck grease, or anything) and he seemed to go into heat every few days at which point all the other males would go nuts and be all over him. He definitely had male genitalia, giant rat balls and all. He lived a normal lifespan and when he died I opened him up and he had a single weird, malformed uterine horn and one really weird looking ovary. It was cooooooool.
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Oct 26, 2010 17:41
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Here are some new photos of my lot. Ratamon = Black Berkie Sylvie = Agouti berkie Gwen = Hoodie I'm proud to say they're all rescues, I hate supporting crappy pet stores and back yard breeders. & pleased to be able to give neglected pets a new home.  They got a hard-boiled egg last night, Ratamon is the biggest food-hog ever.  Sylvie enjoys sitting atop the cage for hours on end.  Sylvie helps me study biology.  "Is that the sweet smell of potting mix I detect?"  Argh!  Well, at least I got a collection of really nice group photos as they scrambled to get legionnaires disease. Meanwhile, outside.....  Mr Piddles.  Everyone is knocking over my pot plants today
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Oct 27, 2010 01:40
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