Newspaper, our saviour!
Keep your rats happy with materials like newspaper or fabirc scraps to shred as nesting material, rather than shredding the liners of their precious hammocks.
I've been lining my hammocks like this for years and it sure makes a difference! Remember to change the newspaper out often, even daily if possible, so their hammock stays fresh and ammonia from urine can't build up. Also less washing for you! Win Win!
Active Play
Cat Toy: $2 from a $2 store
Rat & human enjoyment: Priceless
Echo & Seti Chilling Out
E: Ooooo Aaaa lovin' the grooms sis
S: Hey wait, what's dat smell?
E: Oh yeah what is dat?
*Cue lots of sniffing*
Hanging Foraging Toy DIY
For this weeks cage clean & redesign day I thought I'd add an extra enrichment item for the old girls.
This cardboard christmas ribbon spool was filled with a couple of almonds, walnuts, sun flower seeds and cheerios and then stuffed with scrap fabric. Scrap fabric can be substituted with newspaper if that's all you have, adding this extra filler will take up more of their time while trying to get to the good stuff and it holds the treats in as they fling the toy around.
Hanging it up with some twine offered a bit more of a challenge for the girls as it's harder to manipulate...well until Seti the smartie figured out the secret - when one angle of approach fails try it from a different one! Clever little thing!
This was the 4th video taken. The puzzle lasted about 20 minutes of coming and going before they got to this point.
Cage Swap! Introduction of Maev & Nyx PART 2.
See Part 1. for detailed description ;)
Cage Swap! Introduction of Maev & Nyx PART 1.
We have two days left of non-contact introductions. Today we moved to step 3! Cage swap!
In this vid & pt. 2 we see Echo & Seti exploring the new girls, Maev & Nyx's cage.
Echo is displaying some really interesting behaviour. I need to research exactly what it is but I suspect some sort of scent marking behaviour - where she shuffles her hands quickly and rubs her chest on everything- leave it with me and I'll get back to you in comments!
Interestingly Nyx displayed the exact same behaviour while in the old girl's cage! She and Echo have been the most interested in the new scents, constantly sniffing towards each other through their cages. I have found them sleeping in the closest points to each other in each cage since they arrived... it will be very interesting to see how these two mix! Seti & Maev are much more blasé' about the whole affair.
Running on her Wodent Wheel
Seti lovvves to run on her wheel, she stops and looks out the window frequently to check where she is as she goes.
Only 1/3 of my girls use the wheel, as many others have noticed about wheels, they can be a bit hit and miss. But Seti is so addicted to running that I only use the wheel in free range time as she lost too much weight when it was in the cage for a few weeks!
I love this brand as it's easy to clean and very quiet expect for the pitter patter of her feet as she runs happily during free range :)
If you wanted to look at the sizes and consider ordering one follow this link, the lady is local to Qld ;)
http://www.dapper.com.au/wheels.htm
Help save your hammocks this winter!
So on my favourite rat group page today I saw a lady searching for ideas to stop her two male rats destroying their hammock. A common concern for all us hammock lovers! Here are a few ideas I suggested that I thought i'd share with you guys ;)
Winter is an especially dicy time for your hammocks as the Ratties are looking to create additional insulation in their favourite cozy spots!
- Line hammocks with newspaper so they shred this and not their hammock base
- Throw in or hang some ripped newspaper for them to forage for and use up (See Seti busy at work in the video!)
- Offer various wooden structures for them to gnaw on
- Offer them tissue boxes with newspaper inside and cover with some old material - nice cheap warm house
- Offering multiple cozy houses or "nest spots" allows them to move to cleaner spots, depending how often you clean, as well as spread their chewing antics out to different areas :)
Forage activity for Ratties
DIY Rattie Tunnel
Looking for an easy weekend project?
As seen in this morning's cage design ideas post! >> Make your Ratties some fun tunnels with a $1 seagrass mat from Bunnings & zip ties or twine ;)
Echo in the clean rat washing
Rainy days inside aren't so bad when you have mischievous Ratties to hang out with
