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September Skies
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Our Rattie Palace aka: The Dodgy Brothers Ratty Abode After we got the net on, we started surfing for information on keeping rats healthy and happy. When we came across the Dapper Rat website, I knew we'd struck gold. And as soon as I saw the pictures of Robyn's "grotto", I knew I had to make one. My two girls had been making do with their aquarium, but they sure were happy to stretch their legs going up and down their new mansion. We followed the instructions from the Grotto fairly loosely, keeping it within our budget by making it only four levels, each 30cm high, by 30cm deep, by 60cm wide. Now, if you want instructions for how to make a really good house, go to the dapper website. You can read on here though if you want to learn how NOT to do it! Well, it's not that bad really, but we made some simple mistakes that I wouldn't do again. Our ratties don't know the difference though :)
This is a pretty sketchy sketch of the layout of the house. We made it to this size because it fitted mathematically with what materials we could afford. The back is a piece of 12mm MDF (whatever that is!) which is 120cm x 60cm. We bought two pieces of melamine, both 30cm wide and 240cm long. The first was cut in half, by the nice men at Mitre 10, and this makes the two sides. The second one was cut into three lengths of 60cm (the top, bottom and centre) and the rest into 30cm and approximately 40cm. If you are cutting or having them cut, be sure to do these last two last, if that makes sense, because the act of cutting eats into the wood. I didn't explain myself properly to the Mitre 10 man (he had earmuffs on), and he cut one of the 60cm ones last, and it was too short by about a centimetre. I've had to find a thin piece of wood and fit it in between in the centre shelf and the wall to make it fit. Speaking of which, now is probably a good time to say, if you're in Tassie and you want to make one like this, let me know and you can come by and look at it, because it's hard to explain all the little problems we had along the way! Hence the name, not being at all carpenter-ish :) The red blobs in the diagram are the three hammocks I have, which are hung by screwing hooks into the wall/ceiling and sewing the hammocks with loops in each corner. You can see more about making hammocks here, or you can buy them directly from the Dapper Rat, here. We fitted our house with a trapdoor in the centre, so it can be divided into two separate houses. This makes things easier when we want to clean the cage too, we can shut them into one section while we clean the other. To make the trapdoor, we cut a piece out of the full melamine shelf, about the right size for an adult rat to fit through comfortably. (We cut it with a hacksaw, because that's all we had, but a keyhole saw would be ideal!). You'll need to plane or sand the door down quite a bit to get it to fit the hole, because the edges also need to be sealed with electric tape to stop liquids getting in. As you can see, there is a little bit of fiddling around to make a catch for the trapdoor bolt, but it's really not that difficult. You just need a piece of wood the same thickness as the trapdoor, and you screw this into the wall above the trapdoor clearance. Then you fix the catch for the bolt in the right spot so it can be held open. You will also need to fix a second catch to the underneath of the shelf, to meet with the trapdoor for when you'd like it to be closed.
For the doors, we used cheap pine, which we painted to seal it. We made the frame by glueing the pieces together and banging in a special piece of metal with spikes in it. Does that make any sense? I don't know what they're called, but they are rectangles of metal, which have bent prongs that you hammer into the wood, across the join. Maybe a picture would help here...
We used one inch square weld-mesh wire, following the ideas of the Dapper Rat site, but I didn't take into account that they keep big squishy boys! Our girls were more than up to the task of squeezing out those holes, though it took them a day to realise this. Having fixed the wire on already (just by banging nails in halfway and then bending them over the wire and hammering flat), we didn't want to remove it and buy more. So we just placed a second piece of wire (the leftover piece luckily) over the top of the first, making them off-centre with each other so that the spaces became half an inch each. Ok, now you can see some photos of the DB Ratty Abode.... Sorry If they're a bit dark, I only had the camera for a little while, so some pictures were taken at night....
Whole house outside Whole house inside
Top of house inside (complete with rats) Bottom of house inside It was a little sparse in there when I took these pictures, but there are other bits and pieces that have belong in there, like pvc tubes, rocks, tunnels and ladders. It was cleaning day, so some things were getting scrubbed!. They don't use the ropes and ladders anyway, they like climbing up the wire! We screwed little hooks into the under-side of each shelf, so that we could hand hammocks, ropes and ladders. I had an original plan, and that's how I decided where to hang the hooks. [Since making this page, I have re-arranged to hooks to make space for bigger hammocks, as now my ratty abode has six rats in it! The beauty of the hooks is that you can just screw them in somewhere else.] We lined the floor spaces with towelling. I cut the towel into the right size and sewed along the edges with zig-zag stitch to stop it fraying. You can buy Velcro from sewing shops, and it come in two types - a sticky backed one and one for sewing in. I sewed Velcro to the corners of the towelling, and we stuck Velcro squares to the four corners of each shelf. The towelling can then be taken out every two or three days and washed (making two for each shelf means you have spares for washing day). Some of my rats would never dream of chewing on it, but one day my older rats decided it would make a great nesting material... They LOVE their tube hammock, which is the red one, and also their beanbag, which is just a piece of old towel sewn up with wheat inside. In winter I may heat it up a little, like those wheat neck-packs for humans. That should keep my ratbaggies warm :-) [Since making this page I have added a large, stable rock on the bottom shelf to help wear down their claws. I have also added a litter tray, which most of my rats use (yay!) most of the time, and some branches of driftwood for them to climb up and down and chew on. They also have a little lurking space which is a terracotta pot. It's one of those ones that has a flat side, because it's meant to hang from the wall. I'll try and remember to add some newer photos of the rats in their house.] Here are some pictures of the house being used...
Top floor with Skye and Bree. Second floor down, Skye munching Our girls don't really use their bottom levels except for tearing around in the middle of the night. They are getting a little laid back in their middle age years ; ) The young rats we looked after loved the bottom half best though. They liked the pocket hammock better than the tube. Mouse Houses Since rescuing Cassie, I have been playing around with different variations of mouse houses. The first one shown here is the tank left over from my ratties' old abode. It's much better suited to mice, and when I look at it now, I can't believe I used to keep two rats in it. Oh well, we can only do our best, and that was all I knew. So, here are some pictures of Cassie and her babies in the house. I have since added a big rock for their climbing, viewing and chewing (!) pleasure.
The whole aquarium. Morning feasting (plum and kale)
The bottom level, with two mice showing off in the wheel :) This house works well, and I change the decor regularly. They love their cloth tunnel, their ropes and their wheel best. Cassie loves to snuggle down in her mouse-bag. Next I decided to make a mini Ratty Abode, for mice. Why? I don't know really, it was just a whim, and because it's smaller it was much cheaper to make, so it wasn't such an important decision. I think I really just wanted a cage where I could hang up hammocks for my mice - the aquarium doesn't allow for that as easily. It will probably end up as a playground for the mice, where they can go to hang out sometimes and get some exercise going up and down and over and under! I think the aquarium is better set up for viewing, and mousey chewing tendencies (this one's made of painted wood - again, I used water-based, non-toxic paint), and probably my little aquarium is the best place for mice to have their babies. But, it's good to have a spare cage as well, you never know when you'll be inundated with rescues. Here are a couple of pictures of the house under construction. Mousey Abode (without door). A "ladder", made by cutting grooves into wood. As you can see, the Mousey Abode is much like the Ratty abode, but much smaller. It has small holes cut at the back/front of the two levels, to allow mice through. One has a ladder, the other a trapdoor with a rope hanging down to climb between levels. I have to admit, in terms of carpentry I think it's really shonky! You can't see very well, but the shelves are a bit sloped! I shouldn't have attempted it without my husband there, he's much more methodical and practical than me! But the mice won't mind :). I've designed it with a larger level at the top, able to be closed off via a trapdoor. This means that any rescue mums that come in can live on the top level, and when the babies are old enough to clamber down a rope, I'll open the trapdoor. I think it's essential to have litters on a single level, so mum can't hurt her babies dragging them up and down levels, and so they can't fall off. I'm not going to talk about how I made this one, because it's too dodgy!
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Created on the 13th Feb 2004. Last updated 10/4/05. |
Two pictures of the trapdoor.
And this is the kind
of hinge we used: 
