# Poop in food dish??



## Darkangel92 (Oct 15, 2011)

One of my girls keeps putting litter in her food, which she has always done I just used to take it out in the morning but now I'm finding a few poop pelets in it. Some fresh...what do I do?!?!?!?


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## British (Apr 2, 2012)

Are you sure they aren't falling off of a shelf above the bowl? My new babies seemed to be doing this, but when I moved the bowl from under the shelf, it stopped...


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## Darkangel92 (Oct 15, 2011)

The food dish is on the top shelf in their house. I put it in the house because one of them will take everything out of the bowl and put it in the house if the bowl is anywhere else lol. Their litter box is on the bottom and the other side of the cage. So Idk =\


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## shawnalaufer (Aug 21, 2011)

Mine do the same thing. I had to move the food bowl to the bottom of cage as everytime she added litter to the food bowl, it fell through the cage and all over my floor.


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## kamii (Mar 14, 2012)

Mine always use their litter tray, except occasionally they pee up near their food.. I think it's quite normal. Maybe she's trying to hide the food for later then realises it smells like a litter tray?


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## PitterPatter (Feb 28, 2012)

I use bird food dishes to avoid this. :/


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## Rubber Duck (Apr 7, 2012)

PitterPatter said:


> I use bird food dishes to avoid this. :/


My cage is a "flight cage" for small birds. It came with two clear plastic dishes, and they have snap-on shield things partially covering the dish, I guess to protect the food from falling "white stuff" from birds, .. 

These ones attach to the side of the cage in a doorway, by the tab I'm holding it by, on the other side is a perch for the birds to sit on. The door opens vertically and it slides down and rests on that tab. Theoretically a rat could poop in it, but they don't. The cage came with two of them, so I fill them both. Sometimes I'll see the rats eating out of both of them, but they usually prefer to eat out of whichever one is closer to their little house.


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## moongate (Mar 12, 2012)

This is why I clean and replace their dishes daily. I find everything in the dishes. Everything. Bedding, their toys, their boxes and poop. I basically overhaul their cage everyday, which gives them time to do some free ranging.


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## petratts (Feb 14, 2012)

My rats all ways move their food. I had a bowl but they pooped in it. I stopped using the bowl. And just give them food. My rats will take the food and the big one will put it in one of their igloos or the sleeping box and the little one will hide food in several different places, but eventually the big one will find it and moves it to the igloo. When I first got the little rat he only pooped on his igloo. Like he would poop on the top of the igloo and then he would sit in it. Once i got him in a bigger cage he stopped and now they both only poop on the bottom level of the cage.


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