why critter keepers are not good for rodents...

Hey guys,

So I came across this issue this week when I found a few of my rats swimming in their kritter keeper!!

I buy my feeders live(not for a lack of trying to switch to F/T), and most of my animals are on Norways. I have a proper rat bin for Noways that get refused. Some of them are stuck on Natals and sometimes I have 3 of them kicking around after feeding day. I was keeping them in a Kritter Keeper like this one.

http://lllreptile.com/load-image/Sto...age/image/4247

If you guys look closely there is a circle on the top that pops off and you can slide a rodent water bottle down in there. It lasted months, and yesterday I smelt something really gross coming from the bedroom, walked in and they were in a swamp of aspen, food, and water.. LOL They chewed through the bottle and emptied over 500ml into the cage!

Just thought I would share with you guys so no one else tries this LOL.

wow & yikes.
i have a kritter keeper but its not that one.

Cool! Check out that picture on the side...you can keep boa constrictors and iguanas in those things! :P

Sounds like quite the mess! I wonder how surprised the rats were when all that water started pouring out? LOL

I'd be afraid of chew-outs in a rig like that. I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did!

Luckily I had a spare aquarium laying around, because I just ended up with a pet rat. My BP has refused to eat F/T in the winter, and will only accept live. I have tried to feed this rat to my BP twice now, and they just cuddle, no kidding, like rub noses and the BP uses the rat for a pillow. I had decided to call the rat Wesley after the character in the movie "Princess Bride", but after surviving two feeding, he is now "The Dread Pirate Roberts."

LOL yeah! I still haven't gotten the stain out of the plastic from all the wet substrate! I keep the keeper in an extra aquarium I have. If they get out of the kritter keeper, they still have to get out of the aquarium too! I figure that gives me enough time to discover them and foil their escape plans.

LOL! I guess this is why people tend to lean towards the glass water dispensers! I've given them a tiny little water dish for the interim and change it every 12 hours or so (what a pain in the ass). The problem is one of the ASF has become very dominant of the keeper and bites anything that tries to come in so I have to take the water dish out with feeding tongs. All the while he's biting ferociously at the tongs! :rage:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JLC

Cool! Check out that picture on the side...you can keep boa constrictors and iguanas in those things! :P

Sounds like quite the mess! I wonder how surprised the rats were when all that water started pouring out? LOL

I'd be afraid of chew-outs in a rig like that. I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did!

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LOL!! I should see if my 20 lb Boa fits :) or at least get 1/4 of him and send photos to the company with the caption, "LIES!"

I had tons of issues with rodents chewing water bottles. I even had one afternoon of trying to cut OPEN a water bottle to get a rodent out after they chewed the bottom rim, then one crawled INSIDE and couldn't get back out.

My rats in the 55g tank drink out of a dish set up on another overturned dish as a platform. The rack rats can't get to the water bottles. Those things are too pricy to replace every time the rats decide they're bored.

when i used water bottles i used the rubber stoppers with sipper tubes on liqueur bottles. they started chewing the rubber stoppers. so i took the plastic lid of the liqueur bottle and drilled a hole in it to slide the sipper through and screwed it over the chewed rubber stop. they had a much harder time chewing the hard plastic and pretty much left it alone.
adam jeffery

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wolfy-hound

I had tons of issues with rodents chewing water bottles. I even had one afternoon of trying to cut OPEN a water bottle to get a rodent out after they chewed the bottom rim, then one crawled INSIDE and couldn't get back out.

My rats in the 55g tank drink out of a dish set up on another overturned dish as a platform. The rack rats can't get to the water bottles. Those things are too pricy to replace every time the rats decide they're bored.

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That's incredible!! I have never heard of anything like that! I wish I saw that.