# How I make the liners for my Rat Manor. (With pictures.)



## Phantom (Apr 4, 2012)

So last week I finished making the last of my three green cage liners. I don't use a cage liner on the bottom, I only use liners on my shelves because I've had many instances where my rats (especially Molly) have gotten their little claws stuck in the wire. I had a type of white fleece liner when I first got the cage, and later I made a pair of jean liners. I still find my green cotton liners to be better than the first two types of liners I had. They don't get chewed on if I iron them, and they absorb more and just smell less in general. I clean my cage every week, and my rats are not litter trained yet. (They will be though.) I actually decided to pick the color green for my liners because I read somewhere that rats can see the color green quite well as opposed to other colors. Maybe it's also why they haven't shredded these. Lol. I started making my liners back in April, and to this day, besides the rare hole or two and a bit of fading, they have remained in tact. I don't know how long fleece liners last, but mine did not last very long. So without further due, here's how I made them.

*Step 1:* Pick your fabric. I think I used 1 yard of fabric for every set of liners I made (two shelves and the large middle).

*Step 2:* Measure your fabric. Be sure to measure at least half an inch more than you need on all sides for when you sow. Fabric also shrinks in the wash. Be sure to measure twice the size of each level because you will sow the ends together when you sow. So a 7 inch width will become a 14 inch width plus the extra half an inch on both sides brings you to 15 inches for the width of a shelf. _For the middle sections of the Rat Manor do not cut out the center hole until you have completed Step 3._ You can also make two lines (which is what I did). One line is the one you will cut on, and the other one (the line half an inch inward) will be the line you sow on). 



*Step 3:* Fold your fabric over so that the color side is on the inside and the side you don't want showing in the final product (with me it was the white side). For example, this will turn your 15 inch width into 7 and a half inches again. 



*Step 4:* Iron your liners. This will flatten out any bumps you don't want in the final product. It also makes sowing easier, and I found that my rats don't chew on the fabric if I iron it first. In this step you can also cut out the hole for the middle liner, now that the fabric is evened out.



*Step 5:* Sow the big liner first (because the hard stuff should be done and over with first and the easier liners can come later. I used a sowing machine to sow mine because it saves time. Leave a hole on the side where the hole in the middle is. Do NOT do what I did in the picture. You don't want to sow that far down because it will become very wrinkly once you turn the liner inside out. Look at the next picture on where to stop so you can pull the fabric through.



*Step 6:* Pull the fabric through turning your liner inside out (with the color you want showing on the outside this time). Make sure to get all the little corners turned inside out too.

*Step 7:* Iron your fabric again. This will help straighten out the liner and make sure no air pockets are left on the inside. You can also iron down the fabric of the pocket you left, but iron that down towards the inside. This will help you sow off the pocket better. 

*Step 8:* Sow off the pocket. This shows the correct place you should have stopped sowing at in Step 5. Where the string begins in this picture is where the other string ended. Any little holes that are still left in your liner that your sowing machine did not catch can be sowed off at this point too. 




*Step 9:* Iron the whole thing again if desired.

*Step 10:* Sow the two shelves now by repeating Steps 5-8, only this time just leave a little pocket near the end so you can pull the fabric through there. Usually my pockets are about 3 inches big so I don't have too much trouble pulling the fabric through. 



*Step 11:* Enjoy your liners! I usually pin the liners in my cage down with butterfly clips. I also iron my liners again every time after I wash them. This keeps them nice and flat, and it doesn't get chewed on when I do this for some weird reason.


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## Divit (Aug 5, 2013)

Do you have photos of the liners in your cage?
I just sewed fleece liners for a CN cage. Now I'm worried they will just get chewed right through. (We don't have rats yet)
We also happened to use a bright green fleece.


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