Rats!

Housing and Feeding

What size of cage?
As big as you can get and are comfortable with to look at! Rats need to explore and a small living space is not a good thing for them. Get quite a high sided cage too and layer it with spars so they can hop about. Place wooden tunnels and arches on the floor so they have somewhere to sleep and clamber in and out of.

How often to I need to clean the cage?
As I said at the start, rats are remarkably clean animals, and once a week should suffice.

What should I feed them on?
Rat food from the pet store - and occasionally some vegetables and meat scraps. My current rats like to nibble on carrot and brocoli and will take tiny pieces of chicken meat. I keep this to a minimum though, so it does not put them off eating their balanced rat mix. Only a couple of times a week.

The best rat mix is Burgess SupaRat as this contains everything your rat will need to be healthy and happy.

What should I not feed them?
Apart from what I suggest above - nothing! High protein foods can cause skin disorders and fatty foods can cause tumours. There is another reason you should stick to the above - it is balanced. If you start feeding your rat too many human-tasty treats such as cheese or sweetened cereals they will find their own food boring and not get the nutrients they need - as well as develop horrible diseases.

Feed them as if you would feed your own child in a perfect world! Sensibly, balanced and don't overload their bowl. Let them get down to the bottom of it before refilling it, otherwise they will only take out the tastiest bits from the rat mix if keep it constantly topped up.

And of course, fresh water should be constantly available.

Bedding
I bed my rats with a layer of wood shavings, topped with meadow hay. It is important though that the wood shavings are good quality and not dusty, dust will give your rats respitory problems. The meadow hay should be soft and of good quality. What rats also love is tissue paper! Some will shred it and make little nests for themselves with it, although not all will do so. You may just like to try it out with them anyway, and see who takes up the task.