rat cleaning

how offten do you clean your rat cages im new to having more than one rat and ever since i got 2 more (have 3 now) it feels like i need to clean out the tube every other day

I Clean Twice A Week.

What are you using for bedding? Our rats only need to be cleaned once a week or so, and they live in the house.

shredded news papper

Yep, that's why... newspaper is good for nesting material but horrible for absorbing anything and the rats will urinate/defecate so much that they just trample everything into a liquidy mess.

Aspen shavings work great, are inexpensive, and you should only have to change once a week or so depending on your rats(if they are boys or girls). Tractor Supply or Petsmart/Petco would be your best bet at finding aspen. Please don't use pine or cedar.

Are you breeding them?

You might think about switching to a shredded wood bedding I use a mixture of aspen and pine bedding. Also what are you keeping them in. Less air circulation means more funky rat smell LOL. :D

im am going to breed them i got 3 females i got them realy young so they arnt ready to start breeding yet but they are in a 51qt tub

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Originally Posted by evanw72

im am going to breed them i got 3 females i got them realy young so they arnt ready to start breeding yet but they are in a 51qt tub

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What kind of top do you have. And Becky is right Pets mart has a 50lb bag of aspen for like 12.00 in the small pets isle. But on the reptile isle they have a .5lb bag for 7.00 do the math. I will warn you rat breeding is addictive. :D

And you'll end up like me with tubs full of these guys. :D

http://www.wildmorphs.com/uploads/new%20room/rats.JPG

How many snakes do you have? You do realize that females can have up to 20 babies per litter?

Definitely wouldn't be worth breeding them if you only have 1-2 snakes IMHO. I would get them a bigger enclosure. A wire, solid bottomed cage such as a Super Pet cage or an All Living Things 2-3 story cage from Petsmart would work fine. You'll need a much bigger tub and alot of ventilation(the majority of the lid replaced with screen) if you want to keep 3 growing, active females in a tub.

oh ya i no iv been breeding mice for about a year and i dont need as many mice as i use to, so i wanted to get into rats and the news papper seemed to work great with the mice and i did use aspen the first cuple weeks befor i put papper with the rats maybe i need more venolation and go back to the aspen i herd of people using cat litter any of you every use that?

You can use the recycled paper pellets(Yesterday's News) but clay cat litter will mess up their respiratory tracts. You ever held your head in a cat box and breathed deeply while the dust is everywhere? It's not fun and you can't breathe afterwards.

I would use aspen(or a mix of aspen and yesterday's news) and increase ventilation. It should help immensely, both the smell and the rats' breathing. Ammonia is one of the major causes of respiratory distress in rats.

thx iv already moved them to a cage that is about the same size but ill get a biger one this weekend and i have 8 snakes and i plane to only get 2 of the 3 into breeding the 3rd is just a pet shes to old have had her for a while going on like 3 yrs almost

I've got Gentle Touch litter (it's an aspen-based pelleted litter) in my tubs right now, but I'm not very happy with it, so I'm going to be switching to aspen chips or sani-chips once it runs out.
The stuff looks like rabbit pellets. It does work very well for controlling odor and keeping the cage clean and dry, but because it's nothing but small hard pellets, it seems very wasteful when you have to dump it all at the end of the week. I want something fluffier that I don't have to use so much of to get good coverage. Plus, while the Gentle Touch also works for the snakes, there's the same problem--you have to use quite a bit of it to get decent coverage, and it keeps the cage conditions a bit drier than I would like unless you put in some damp paper toweling or spray it down. It turns into sawdust when dampened, and is pretty easy to clean up, at least.

I wouldn't recommend the Sani-Chips for the rats. It gets everywhere and you'll find it in your carpet 4 years later ;) I think I used it once and when that bad was empty, I said FORGET IT. The cost is very prohibitive and I definitely won't use it for my snakes(hemipenal abscesses don't sound like a great thing to have).