# Litter training trouble - should I just keep trying?



## demiiguise (Aug 22, 2015)

Hi,

I've had my girls for nearly a month now and I quickly began to try to litter train them after reading about it online. I have tried to move their poos to their litter tray as much as I can and have provided them with a pee stone. In the last few days, they have started doing their business in front of the litter tray (so I am in the right corner at least!) but not really too much inside - is my litter box too small perhaps? It fits nicely into the order and is big enough for my rats to get their whole body inside. Also, over night (and a few other times previously) they have completely overturned the whole thing (I've literally seen Luna grab the edge with her teeth and drag it away!) I can't really think of a way to fix it into the corner using a rat-safe method - most of the time it seems they do leave it alone. As I have been trying for a while now, is there ever a point where you realise they will never get it and resign yourself to not having a litter tray? Or do you literally just keep trying indefinitely? I have no problem carrying on moving their poo to the litter tray and putting their tray back into the corner when it gets moved, but will they get it eventually or is there a cut off moment when you give up? Has anybody had any similar experiences? Thank you!


----------



## LilCritter (Feb 25, 2014)

I've found that some rats get it, others don't, and some are in between. I've kind of just given up, but I still move their poos to the litterbox when I have time. Sometimes, it takes more than a month though.


----------



## raindear (Mar 3, 2015)

I have my litter trays under the ladders as that seems to be their favorite spot to poo. This way the ladder holds it in place. Some people put pee rocks in the litter tray both to help keep it in place and to help the rats to learn to pee in the litter tray.


----------



## moonkissed (Dec 26, 2011)

How large is your pee rock? Mine is far too big and heavy for them to knock the litterbox over at all. I find larger stones help more to direct pee IMO You can also drill holes in the box and ziptie it to the bars.

Also how large of a cage do u have? it may be helpful to add multiple litterboxes on different levels.

Sadly some rats will never be fully litter trained. Some get it, some don't. I would even say that the majority of rats will not be 100%. 

But that being said... i still think it is worth it to keep a litter box. If it gets half of the mess that is still going to help keep the cage cleaner.


----------



## kksrats (Jul 25, 2014)

I've found that it's pretty important for the litter tray to be a stationary fixture in the cage; if they can move it then there's really no set place that they know to pee and poop. You can fix a tray in place by drilling a hole in it and placing a snap hook through the hole and then around a bar of the cage. Do your trays have grates? Until I got trays with grates (when I was using aspen litter in them), my rats just thought it was another bed lol. They would either pull all the aspen out and build a nest somewhere with it or just sleep in the tray itself. I recently switched to having baskets with nothing but river rocks covering the bottom and I will probably never go back to using any other type of litter tray, it works that well. I have 7 rats in a DFN with 3 baskets for them to potty in. I'd say about 95% of poop goes into baskets and a lot of pee (but of course they just can't resist peeing on fleece too ). I change the rocks and wipe the baskets twice a week. Unfortunately they don't really provide much in the way of masking odor, but I'd rather have them going in one spot.


----------



## demiiguise (Aug 22, 2015)

Thanks for all your replies. My litter box is just a small, triangular shaped plastic tub - it actually does have holes in it's corner but it sits too far into the base of the case to reach the bars (it would then be floating off the ground!) The cage I have currently is quite a small starter cage (2-4 rats, one small platform) - my partner and I are going to save up and get them a bigger one. At the moment, a bigger litter tray would take up too much of their cage but I will definitely consider that (and how to fix it down) when we get a different cage. I shall keep persevering with them for the time being!! At least I can see they're going roughly in that corner so that's something!!


----------



## StonerGirlandHerRatties (Aug 25, 2015)

I've been trying for months to litter train mine but ive just had no look xD luckily for my the base of my current cage is metal bars with 2 removable trays under which makes the cleaning much easier, kinda like one huge litter tray lol. Good luck x


----------



## KaylaMarie (Aug 13, 2015)

My litter tray is like this, floating a bit, and it hasn't been a problem for litter training. The only thing is they can go under it and that's been making noise, but it's tightly fastened so they can't tip it.


----------

