jo - how do you keep your ratties?

oh thank you soooo much warren. i plan on using your idea so that's great having it here!!!!!

Heck Heath it's an open forum topic LOL, so please do jump right on in. I'm hardly a rat expert with my own small colony. Actually I saved the other thread where you showed this idea for the combo food and water bottle caging (and I think a drawing too?). Excellent concept and one I cheerfully plan on "stealing" from you LOL. Will save me tons of chewed bottles and keep the tanks far tidier. I have one female who steals all the lab block and hoards it away...she even sits on her "stash" so none of the other rats can get it. Apparently she is waiting for the great lab block crash of 2006 to occur, at which point she figures she will make a killing on the market! LOL. I figure with your idea and a small dish for Becky's mix and kitchen scraps my tanks/tubs will be a bit more efficient to manage.

Jo, I have one female that does the same thing! :D


She pushes out of her tub (even though it's either taped or has a bungee cord on it), goes to the automatic feeder, grabs a lab block, goes back in the tub and puts the lab block in her corner. She repeats many times. She never goes anywhere else and if one of us comes out into the garage where the rack is, she skampers back into the tub.

None of my other rats in my 9 colonies do this - just her. I'm sure she is hoping to cash in on that market too. LOL

Rats are goofy things aren't they Alice LOL.

which is what makes them such a fun pet :)

Yep almost a perfect rodent really....hardly any smell...very easy to care for...eat just about anything within reason and still produce hardy offspring....very socialable...males don't generally kill off their own young...make great pets and super good snake feeders. I like my rats! :D

my daughter almost always has one out on her bed or riding around on her shoulder :)