How I clean my rats cage

I had a heck of a time figuring out new ways to clean my rats cage. We would use dog pads for the bottom since they had their own litter boxes that would be in the corner. they aren't 100% litter trained and they pee everywhere so eventually they would stink up the place.

We switched to fleece but they would chew it up like crazy. We decided to try towels and that is what we currently use. We have the same problem of pee making the place smell and the poops would be scattered. We just bought a hand help vacuum and it's keeping things pretty clean. I clean it everyday and it doesn't take much time at all! I am loving this little miracle lol

How do you clean your rats cage?

Rat Supplies Coming Soon

Have you ever gone to a pet store and looked for rat stuff and only find this small selection that is pretty expensive for how fast rats will rip through the toys or tubes? Yup, I have that problem to. Especially since I have 3 cages I have to keep up with.

I have critter nation that I split into 2. The top half homes my females and the bottom half homes my bucks. When I clean their cage I put them into a separate cage that stays vacant. I used to buy hammocks but they kept ripping the part that I use to clip it to the cage. They also chewed some holes into it -_-. I decided to hand sow fleece to make tubes and hammocks. I used to use doggy page on the bottom of the cage but they would just chew it up and their cage would get stinky fast. I started to use the fleece but that didn't last long either. I got tired of making tubes by hand because my fingers were covered with bandaids and I did not own a sewing machine.

I noticed I am not the only one with this problem. I decided to start making rat products for cheap since our rats will just rip it apart. Plus they pee all over it so we need multiples so while we are cleaning one batch we have another one to use. Point is, I want to help us out. Us as in rat owners. We love them and want them to be comfortable and clean. I will post pictures when they are done and hopefully you will love them.

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Oh, I now use towels for the bottom of the cage and hand towelettes for hammocks. It was the only thing that lasted for a good while.

Vet visit

After Kitkat passed I have been checking my rats like crazy. I noticed that 2 have bumps and I started freaking out. I tried to make an appointment for all of them to be seen but they didn't have any slots open til the next friday. I am not a patient person so I was not about to wait that long. Luckily my vet has walk ins on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I could wait 1 day.

I then get a call saying Kitkat's urn came back. I had 2 reasons to go back so I was not about to miss the walk in. Right as I am walking to my job my boss says theres a meeting tonight at 7. -_- like seriously? I didn't even know how there could be a meeting if some staff will be working during that time. She said it was mandatory but other staff said it wasn't. After the last time I called of because of my rats I didn't want to give them the same reason so I just didn't give them any.  Plus it was a meeting, not a shift so I didn't feel as bad.

After work I picked up my rodents and had to put them in boxes -_- I had small animal carriers but nooooo. They chewed holes in them. I knew the girls would find a way out but my boys are pretty lazy. They slept the whole ride there. The nurse was kind enough to let me borrow some cat carriers on the way home.

All my rodents are healthy and happy. The 2 girls with bumps is because she's ovulating and the balding one is because skittles is grooming her roughly plus she's my most submissive one.

until next time

Guilt..

After the death of my beloved rat, Kitkat, I felt nothing but guilt. Guilty for not paying attention to them. Guilty of not spending time with them. I should have noticed a lot sooner than I did that she was sick.

I didn't want to feel that way again so I cleaned out their cages, put some new toys in, stocked up on rat food and made sure they had cold water all the time. I let them out every day now and made a rat maze for them.

As of right now, I think my rats are pretty happy. I have been feeding them nuts which I was told they really like and every now and then I will give them a piece of my food. I knew I was doing well with feeding them because they wouldn't eat the food. Instead they have a huge stash of everything in a box I put in there. lol

What do you do to keep your rats happy?

RIP Kitkat

Just 3 days ago I lost one of my precious rats. She was one of my eldest rats. I felt so guilty for just noticing she was sick 2 days before she passed. I took her to the vet and he wasn't able to figure out what was going on with her and told me to go to a specialist hospital since it was too late and she needed to be seen immediately. Then he told me that whatever she has isn't reversible. She was too far gone. I tried to make her as comfortable as possible and gave her water through a syringe since she wouldn't eat or sleep. 

Next day I take the day off and of course they weren't happy but I was not about to work a 9 hr shift worrying the whole time and if she passed when I was gone then I would quit my job. YES! this is how serious I am. So I decided just not to go to work. 

When I would pick her up she would make noises which she didn't do the day before so I knew it was getting worse. I called the vet and they said that it's time for her to go. So I made an appointment but my boyfriend who is their papa wanted to spend time with her before she went so we scheduled for the next morning and tried giving her pain reliever that the vet recommended. 

Just an hour later while she was in my hand, she began to open and close her mouth, her body began to shake and then she went still. The pink color drained from her feet. Her warmth started to fade. I couldn't believe it. 

We took her straight to the vet to get her cremated. 

When I feed my rats they always rush to the door and take it out of my hands. I keep thinking one is missing and start looking for her. 

I used to take a lot of pictures of my rats and kitkat was my tamest one so there were a lot  of her. When we first got her along with skittles, skittles would chew a hole in the corner of the plastic bottom of her cage. Kitkat would always go straight for the bed and start stashing food under our covers. Every time I fell asleep I would find something under my pillow.  My only solace is that she is no longer in pain. 

We love you Kitkat. Hope your in rat heaven. 

More rats

It didn't take me very long to accumulate 5 female rats. I would use the excuse of Valentines Day or Trey's birthday gift, but we all know it was for me ;).  The next one to join the family was Oreo. She's a white with black markings. After her it was Pop-tart. She was about to be a rolo but we couldn't figure out her color. She was a very light brown, like caramel. It was supposed to end with 4 rats but of course that didn't happen. 

I had a good couple of months break from buying rats until my boyfriend found a rat with beautiful markings. We decided to call her starburst. The other rats socialized very well. They had their pecking order already so when Starburst came along it messed up everything. The top rat was Kitkat and she would try to run over starburst all the time that she would hide in the corner. What I found interesting was that Oreo seemed to befriend starburst and try to keep her safe from Kitkat. She would get in between them. It may be my imagination but I swear it seemed like she was protecting her. 

I began to read about rats. Their behaviors and personalities. At the time I only had girls and they were a variety of colors since the pure black ones reminded me too much of sewer rats. My bf always wanted black ones though so I started looking into breeders. I found a woman who had black bucks. You can guess what happened next. Odin and Anubis became our first bucks. They were also the first i had while they were still babies. They were so tiny and i was so afraid when I put them in the girls old cage. They just looked to small for it. I started sowing pillows and hammocks. I didn't even know how to sow! I didn't have a sowing machine or a lesson but it seemed simple enough. I eventually figured out how to make tunnels. They would chew through the fleece pretty fast though so it seemed my hours of work would be gone in minutes. I can tel they enjoyed though so I kept up with them until my fingers were covered with band aids. 

I joined a rat group on facebook and someone had a blue buck =0. Blue is my favorite color and every time I looked up blue buck I just fell in love. My boyfriend agreed on getting ONE more but that was it. 

Poseidon became the last addition. He had it rough. The other bucks were not kind to him at all. Ironically Poseidon became the biggest of them all and is now the top rat. 

The bucks out grew their cage in no time so it was time to split the critter nation. 

Oreo(left) Kitkat (right) 

One of my favorite pics, It looks like they are posing lol

Pop Tart AKA Poppy

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Baby Buck

Can't find pics of my other rodents right now but I'll add them on when I find them =D

Flash Back 3 years

Ever since I was a little kid I wanted a pet. I was never allowed to have one. It freaked my mom out and my dad wanted a dog but kept popping out babies and his wife didn't think it was safe til they were older. I am 10 years apart from my little siblings by the way so I had to wait a long time. I am now 21 years old, moved out when I was 18 and finally got my first pet, a guinea pig. My boyfriend wanted a rat but they freaked me out with their tails. 

I thought guinea pigs were so cute but after awhile I didn't like Mister(guinea pig). He ate...hid in his house.. and slept. I always wanted to pet him but he would run away and kick all the confetti out of his cage. he would squeak all the time especially when my boyfriend came back from work. I was not fond of him. 

Trey finally convinced me to get a rat. We got 2 fancy rats from petsmart. Their names were kitkat and skittles. I fell in love with them. They were so smart, it amazed me. We had gotten them a cage with a plastic bottom. Skittles was the most active one while kitkat was more laid back. Skittles chewed a hole in the corner of the cage and kept escaping it. I was out of town at the time but my bf told me that kitkat snuck into the bed and was stashing cookies under the blanket while skittles was running around in the room. 

From then on, they had my heart.... not the guinea pig though. He drove me crazy

Skittles

Kitkat

I think these pics show off their personality pretty well lol