~ September Skies ~  

Fun for Rats and Mice - Give your pets some Joy!

This is the section where I will write down the ideas for toys and games that I have used to brighten up my ratties' days and nights. If anyone else has ideas, we'd love to hear them, and they'll get posted here. For an excellent range of games, see the Dapper Rat: ratty fun page. May your furry friends enjoy!

~ Beach Fun ~

Living near the beach as we do, we often think of our ratties as we walk along the shoreline. They'd love to be here, smelling all these smell with great big power sniffs :) But it's just not safe, there are too many dogs that come bounding up to us, so even if we carried the girls in our clothes they could get hurt or lost. We decided one day that if we cannot bring the ratties to the beach, we'll bring the beach to the ratties!

We started by gathering "found things", like different shaped shells, pebbles, she-oak cones - using common sense about what they shouldn't put in their mouths of course, because everything seems to get "tasted"! They love to sniff, taste and stash these things away, it keeps them occupied for a few hours.

Then we brought home some driftwood, in both rat and mouse size, and jammed it in their cages so it was secure. They love to scramble along it, have  a gnaw on it, and survey their kingdom from on high :) I think driftwood is fairly safe, I worried about eucalypt wood because of the oils, but dry old driftwood seems to be safe and enjoyable for them.

Next we decided to bring them some sand. I went down to the beach and collected only clean, dry sand from the beach, so that it didn't contain any little wriggly things, and carried it home in a bucket. I got a nice, heavy ceramic tray, a kind of square one with sides about 7 cm high, and used that to put the sand in. I wanted to make sure the rats didn't tip it over, you see. And for the mice (they have to have some fun too!) I used a "bunnykins" bowl, which is a solid porcelain bowl with thick edges. Then I filled them three quarters with sand, and buried some "treasures" in the sand! I used shells, pebbles, very smoothed old beach glass, fresh large grass seed heads, little balls of screwed up-paper, and some special treats I had been saving. I'd bought some roasted chickpeas from the health-food shop where I buy my rat and mouse food, thinking they might like the taste. I was right :)

Then, just add rats/mice! The mice were first to get digging, maybe because they're younger and not as lazy ;-) They got really busy digging, after checking it out to see it was safe. It's so much fun to watch, they really have a ball! the rats were next to come down and check it out. They just sniffed out the treats and scooped a paw in to gather it up, and we thought they weren't as thrilled as we'd hoped. But in the morning we came out, and there's sand all over the bottom of the cage, and miss Bree with sand under her nails looking up at us!

I think they liked it after all ;-) I think we'll make it a regular occasion, and it can stay in there until all the sand is dug out, or they lose interest, and then it can come back after a few weeks, so they can get excited again. It's hard to find treats that the sand won't stick to, any suggestions are more than welcome! But I think that even without the treats, they seem to really love the act of digging. And it's the only way my fat mouse Cassie gets any exercise at all!

~ Garden Gifts ~

I like to give my rat and mice a bit of variety in their lives, something to keep them interested and happy. Being a gardener, I like to share the bounty with my pets. You just have to keep in mind that if you wouldn't eat it then neither should they. Some of the things my rats have enjoyed from the garden are:

~ all sorts of grass seeds, still on the stalks - from big fat ones to tiny delicate ones; 

~ fruits: strawberries, blackberries, peach, apricot, plum, apple, raspberries, figs, pears, tomatoes... (all in moderation)

~ Vegetables: kale, lettuce, broccoli leaves, snow peas, carrots, spinach, silverbeet, comfrey, zucchini....

~ Flowers: flowers from some of your brassicas (cabbage family) that have gone-to-seed, like broccoli flowers (a favourite), cauliflower, kale, rocket, etc. Also other edible flowers, like real dandelion flowers (and leaves), zucchini and squash flowers, nasturtiums (I've never tried these actually)...

Other ways your rats can enjoy the out-doors without leaving the house is if you bring them little things you find: pebbles, sticks, feathers, dried leaves, dried grasses.... You could also move their cage to near an open window on a nicely warm day, as long as the cage is out of the hot sun. That way they can have a good sniff :) My husband likes to take them for a stroll around the garden on his shoulder, and they love it.

~ Fun Indoors ~

Your rats and mice can have a ball inside with you. Our rats love to run around in our clothes when we're sitting on the couch, though we have to be very careful they don't get out, because we lost one inside the couch (believe me, they'll find a way into anything!). It took us two hours, late at night, to get her out, and in the end it meant cutting the back of the couch open!

We also have a "rat bag", which is an old doona cover. We put a few boxes, tubes and rags inside, then lay it out on top of the bed, and put the rats in. Then we roll the open end under, so they stay inside. They seem to love the feeling of tunneling around, they get really excited. After a while, they chew a few holes in it :) We also let them out in the bed, but you have to be happy with some air holes in your sheets, and a bit of wee. That's why the rat bag is good. They don't really like to go on top of the bed, they feel a bit exposed, though they will dart out and run around from a safe shelter (you, a box, or from between the pillows). We try to stroke and wrestle with our ratties, but they don't really like to be man-handled. As I've said before, they're from a pet store, and as far as we can tell they were mass-bred and weren't handled. They're not frightened of us, they just aren't the sitting still, getting scratched behind the ears kind of rats. They just move away and give us dirty looks if we try to stroke them. Oh well.

But for all those rats out there that do like to be handled, there are lots of games you can play with your little friends, from wrestling to chasings to fetch. I won't reiterate them here but you can see the best suggestions I've ever found here, compiled by Julie Eschliman, from the RatList group.

~ Enjoyable Home Decor ~

Meanwhile though, we can still give our ratties a bit of fun, by providing them with interesting home decor. Besides the basic essentials of a nest box, food bowls, and water tubes, we can give our ratties (and mousies) such an interesting life. here are some ideas for enjoyable decor:

~ Hammocks:  all sorts, big long tubes, pocket-hammocks stretched out flat or hanging down the wall, snuggling rat-bags and mouse-bags, and saggy hammocks hanging from the roof. Your rats and mice will love you. you can see the Hammocks that Robyn of The Dapper Rat sells here, and you can see my suggestions of how to sew some hammocks here. Rats and mice love to be snuggled in together in a cosy hammock, and it keeps them warm in the cooler weather too. In the hot weather, they sprawl out on top.

~ Boxes and tubes: you can use all sorts of boxes and tubes, whatever your rats and mice will fit into. You can get creative and make mazes, or you can just pop them in and let the beasties aerate them. Things that are the right size for mice include: toilet roll cardboard, tubes from inside kitchen paper rolls, the small Weetbix boxes, tea-bag boxes, etc... For rats, its a little more difficult to find tubes. You can ask at material shops for the tubes from the inside of cloth rolls, sometimes they're big, sometimes not. but for boxes you have much more choice, pretty much any box that will fit in your cage is big enough! You can make as many doors as you like in them, even windows! One way to make it more exciting is to fill the box with crumpled or shredded paper, or with rags. If you have to coax your ratties in, a few treats thrown in should do :)

~ Ropes and Ladders: We provided our rats with lovely ropes and ladders to get about, but they like to just climb up the wire to get from level to level! However, for other rats and mice, you can make ropes by platting material, or you can buy them from lovely people like Robyn at The Dapper Rat. You can also give them ladders. You can make them simple ramps by cutting grooves into wood (and then painting it with water-based paint), or you can buy ladders from pet stores - the kind used for parrots are excellent. Keep in mind that anything that you put into your ratties' home is eventually going to be destroyed.

~ Furniture: The main piece of furniture I'm thinking of here is the bean-bag. I make these by sewing a simple case, and filling it with brown rice or dried beans. The rats enjoy lounging on it, and when they occasionally make a hole I just sew it up with the sewing machine. In fact, it's good when they make a hole, because that's about the same time as its getting a bit smelly, so I tip the rice out and wash the case, and fill it back up with fresh filling with a funnel. It is possible to wash the bean-bag with it's stuffing in, if you do it quickly, then spin it in the washing machine, then lay it on a clothes rack outside in the sun, turning and shaking it regularly. 

I have also used a miniature ban-bag for my mice, as a mattress in the nest box. I sewed up a little square case from polar-fleece, and filled it with rice. Cassie really loved it, and I keep meaning to make her a new one (I threw it away after the baby mice had been living on it for two weeks!). A mattress like this would be good for older rats as well, ones that prefer their nest-boxes to their soft hammocks. Another use for these bags is to keep a sick animal warm. You know those wheat-filled neck packs that people warm-up in their microwaves, well you can do the same with these rattie bean-bags. Just lay it on your arm for a while before you give it to them, to check it's not too hot, and give them space in the cage to move away from it if they get too warm.

~ Running wheels: I don't actually have a rat wheel, but everyone says that their rats love the "Wodent Wheel" style ones. I'll put a link to them here. Mice are a bit easier to please, they seem to happily climb into any wheel you give them. Just have a good look at it, and think about how it's made - will your mouse get squished or hurt if it tries to get in/out while other mouse is going round? is it too low to the ground that a mouse might get trapped under it? don't worry too much, they aren't likely to do these things, but its a case of bigger, and less spokes, is better. I find the metal wheel that are about ten dollars seem to be good.

                                    Created on the 13th Feb 2004.      Last updated 10/4/05.