I’m sorry peeps. You know, I never intended for this blog to turn into a rat blog!
It’s just that the excitement of getting new pets has been the focus of our lives for the last few weeks, and since I blog about what’s on my heart, lately the ratty love has been overflowing 😛
Anyway, as we wait (two more sleeps!) for Saturday, here’s a post on the rat homes we’ve had in the past and the one we’ve prepared this time around.
The first cage we set up for Scribble and Muesli was this white finch cage:
Our first cage
We used metal baking trays as levels, pull-tied to the cage bars and connected with ladders. It was sparsely decorated, with one dome, one hammock and one swing toy. We were new to fancy rat owning, OK. And besides, it was far superior to the first cage we kept our very first pet-shop rescue ratty (Mizu) in… we never knew better back then, so he lived alone in a fishtank with sawdust 😦 Poor boy 😦
But the upside is that we learn more with each new set of pets. So here’s the cage we set up for Coffee and Flea:
Our second cage
It’s a new black cage, but exactly the same kind and size. The major problem we found with the first cage was that wee, fur and and other interesting deposits got trapped too easily between the pull-ties and metal trays. Also, the trays quickly rusted where the holes had been drilled. So the second cage had cloth levels, as an attempt to have levels that were easy to remove and clean.
As for decor, the dome was still there and they had one main hammock, but we added a terracotta tile to help wear down their nails and often introduced temporary toys such as fruit on a stick or cardboard egg cartons filled with treats. In addition, the girls had more regular runs around our house, which also kept things interesting for them.
Despite that, when we began planning for more rats Ninja and I both wanted to do far more with the cage space and the toys and accessories. As our knowledge has improved, so have our ideas.
For one thing, we’ve had a leap in pet hygiene since I recently purchased F10 SC solution, which is an animal-safe veterinary-quality disinfectant. So the first step was to thoroughly clean the girls’ old cage with F10 and a toothbrush.
The ‘new’ old cage, freshly disinfected
Shew. Tedious and time consuming but necessary and satisfying.
And once the cleaning was done, the fun could begin! Here’s the kitted-out version that awaits Moon, Knight, Mishka and Vodka:
Home sweet home
Looking good eh? More details in my next post 🙂
Sunshine Scrapbook 