# Came home to NO rats and a hole chewed in plastic cage - pic



## RattyBoomBaLatty (May 29, 2013)

Came home today after being gone all day and went in to check on the rats. Instead of finding 3 girls in the hammock, I found an empty cage. After a short search I found them safe and sound in the same room as the cage. Thankfully they hadn't made it out to where the dogs were sleeping. I then found they'd chewed a HUGE hole in the corner of their cage!! It's an All Living Things Luxury Pet Rat Home... and now it's totally useless. Luckily we had an old hamster cage in the garage, but it's waaaaay to small for the 3 girls. They look miserable in it. We are now frantically searching for a new cage - I think we're going to go with a Fiesty Ferret cage. We don't have room for a FN or a CN and we don't want anything plastic. I know the Martins are popular, but I want a cage with a large door in the front.... but I'm stressed that my girls are going to be crammed in a hamster cage until the new cage arrives - and we haven't even ordered it yet! - although it's on the agenda for tonight. What a scary thing to come home to though! I'm sooooo glad we found them all.









Moral of the story - do not buy a plastic cage for your rats because you could end up with chewers and come home to a rat-free cage like we did


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## nanashi7 (Jun 5, 2013)

Depending on how long the cage takes to arrive, you might want to go buy some metal bracers to cover the hole or you can buy a huge bin and start drilling. I would also check your CL to see if they have a cheap crap cage for temporary.


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## cassieb (Aug 6, 2013)

Snowbell always slipped through the bars at night.. We have two cats who haven't done anything aggressive... But I'm not sure what would have happened if they found him before I did! So happy I never had to find that out. 


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## Divit (Aug 5, 2013)

sooo glad you found them all. How unsettling that must have been!

When I was looking for rat cages on craig's list, I saw someone advertising their rat cage. The description said it had a hole chewed through it by his rat but that he would "repair" it before selling it! I thought that was just the funniest thing to advertise "for rats."

Do you have room for the single CN?


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## RattyBoomBaLatty (May 29, 2013)

we don't have the width for a CN - that's the problem. The rats live in my son's room and it's a very small 10x11 bedroom. We have the height, but not the width for it, which is why we're considering the Fiesty Ferret, which isn't as wide. We checked CL for cages and we're coming up empty.... They have the Fiesty Ferret for $130 on Amazon Prime so maybe we'll do that. I know people don't love the FF as much as they do the CN or the FN, but it's affordable so maybe that's the route we'll take.

nanashi7 - any idea how to attach metal bracers to a plastic cage???

Honestly - my heart is still pounding after the whole experience LOL... I was a wreck when I first looked in the cage!


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## nanashi7 (Jun 5, 2013)

I love my FF haha. It's perfect. The bar spacing may be a bit excessive at nearly an inch though.

You will need http://www.homedepot.com/Building-M...&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053&searchNav=true

and a drill, screw it in. Purchase those little circle things to go on both sides to enforce it...can't bloody think of the name, but you see them on many toys to mount them to the cage.


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## watts300 (Aug 3, 2013)

If the metal cage is removable from the bottom plastic plan then go ahead and remove it. 

Be resourceful and see if you can find a metal pan to replace the one that was damaged. 


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## RattyBoomBaLatty (May 29, 2013)

Yeah - thanks everyone. Going to home depot today to see how we can rig this cage to last until a new one comes in....

We were ALL set to order the Fiesty Ferret from Amazon last night for $130-shipped. The the hubby started getting concerned that the girls wouldn't be able to climb the bars.... and that maybe they could slip thru the bars... so now we're looking at a Martin's 695, but at $172 shipped that's a little steep. ::::sigh:::: we were NOT in the market for a new cage, but clearly, we are now.


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## Mitsy (Apr 8, 2013)

I have the FF and my rats climb them no problem their all girls and one is still quit small. She can climb it to with no problem.


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## nanashi7 (Jun 5, 2013)

My rats can climb it just fine, but it took a bit to learn how to compensate for the sliding down. However, when I had to put younger rats in I went and covered it with hardware cloth: get wire cutters, cut to size and zip tie on. This not only reduces the bar spacing to 1/4in but makes it 100% easier to climb.


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## mcbride4227 (Aug 13, 2013)

Ahh my girls are chewers and hate it when I'm gone all day or I'm busy and can't get them out and let them roam free all day long. So they do hold grudges and find anything they can to chew on. I feel your pain


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## RattyBoomBaLatty (May 29, 2013)

nanashi7 said:


> My rats can climb it just fine, but it took a bit to learn how to compensate for the sliding down. However, when I had to put younger rats in I went and covered it with hardware cloth: get wire cutters, cut to size and zip tie on. This not only reduces the bar spacing to 1/4in but makes it 100% easier to climb.


I use hardwire cloth for my pet chickens, but the edges are very sharp and I worry my kids would poke and cut themselves on the edges of the cut metal. Did you do anything to the edges to make it safer? I keep looking on youtube for a good video of rats in the Fiesty Ferret...


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## RattyBoomBaLatty (May 29, 2013)

mcbride4227 said:


> Ahh my girls are chewers and hate it when I'm gone all day or I'm busy and can't get them out and let them roam free all day long. So they do hold grudges and find anything they can to chew on. I feel your pain
> 
> 
> Sent from Petguide.com Free App


Thanks for getting it..... sigh.... my older girl is not a chewer. She has 2 little sisters who chew anything and everything they can get their teeth on!


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## nanashi7 (Jun 5, 2013)

Wire clippers to cut off the sharp parts. I also only have the wire on the outside of their cage so they can't get at it directly.7

Here is a dark video of the top half of my cage with 13 babies and two adults: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FRN7UzJzGY

Here it is weeks later, divided: http://imgur.com/a/1B1N8

Some more pics:http://imgur.com/Lv8AQOT
http://imgur.com/9kwnYXo


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## mcbride4227 (Aug 13, 2013)

RattyBoomBaLatty said:


> Thanks for getting it..... sigh.... my older girl is not a chewer. She has 2 little sisters who chew anything and everything they can get their teeth on!


I had a couple of cages for my girls but a cage would only last me about a month because they'd chew it. So now they are in a tank for the time being and Marley has already managed to chew off most of the glue that would hold water in if they were fish. 


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## nanashi7 (Jun 5, 2013)

mcbride4227 said:


> I had a couple of cages for my girls but a cage would only last me about a month because they'd chew it. So now they are in a tank for the time being and Marley has already managed to chew off most of the glue that would hold water in if they were fish.
> 
> 
> Sent from Petguide.com Free App


Have you tried all-metal cages? Martin cages might be a good bet. I have a FF.


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## watts300 (Aug 3, 2013)

I think it's way smaller than what has been previously mentioned, but for what it's worth, I'm pleased with the Petco rat manor. I don't have first hand experience with other cages though. 


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## mcbride4227 (Aug 13, 2013)

I'm trying to get a nice metal cage but since I don't have a job at the moment I'm looking for cages that are semi cheap because my parents want to buy them a cage. I was also thinking about making my own.


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