Do any of you use newspaper substrate for rats?

Can you do that? or does it have to be some sort of loose substrate. I know the females make nests or something but it seems like newspaper would be so much easier when it comes to cleaning...(just like with snakes :P)

i use shredded news paper as a nesting substrate for my females. i would say no to just the news paper. rats poo and pee alot, and you'd be changing the newspaper hourly. i would stick with aspen...

k thanks

Newspaper is actually not very absorbent so you'd end up with puddles of pee and a gross mess. Sometimes I'll offer nesting females some thin strips from an old phone book to make nests from. Great way to use up old phone books and the rats love the thin paper for nests (even non-maternal rats love to mess about with a handful of the stuff).

I've tried it, VERY briefly.. It ended up stinking within a day. Not absorbent at all, but they sure do have fun tearing the paper up.

Newspaper pellets work quite well, however, though it's not cheap.

Yesterdays News unscented cat litter, or Good Mews.