# "They most certainly CANNOT mate thru cage bars"?



## jeriibearii (Jul 26, 2014)

A part of a Facebook rat group where this was said. Should I still trust their judgement or do they not know what they're talking about?


----------



## Zabora (Jun 8, 2014)

Nope they are right they can't mate through the bars. Rats need to be in a spicific position which cannot be achieved unless the bar spacing is like a a foot wide  but at that point they would just go mate in the corner...


----------



## jeriibearii (Jul 26, 2014)

Then why have I seen multiple times on this forum that they CAN mate thru the bars?


----------



## nanashi7 (Jun 5, 2013)

They really can't. They do it doggy style and you can't do that with bars in the way.


----------



## ksaxton (Apr 20, 2014)

Awhile back someone else posted on this topic, and a member gave a detailed description of how a rat would have to position itself to mate through the bars, basically to shown how impossible it would be. I think someone else added that rats can only mate in the "doggy" position, so they couldn't do that through the bars


----------



## ksaxton (Apr 20, 2014)

Oops, nanashi's post wasn't there when I started typing. She was the one who said that then


----------



## jeriibearii (Jul 26, 2014)

I wish I knew of all the posts where I've seen recently that people have said that they can mate thru the bars and no one ever corrected those people (to my knowledge).. Oh well I don't have males and females so it doesn't matter to me but wanted to know I guess for general awareness? Lol.


----------



## Zabora (Jun 8, 2014)

I haven't seen any of those posts and I usually comb the forum several times a day. But to my knowledge they can't. Have you ever seen rats mating? Yea try doing that through bars...not happening.


----------



## jeriibearii (Jul 26, 2014)

Well at least I know now if I ever come across a male that needs a home and have to put the cages together  hehe


----------



## Zabora (Jun 8, 2014)

jeriibearii said:


> Well at least I know now if I ever come across a male that needs a home and have to put the cages together  hehe


 that's just rude XD


----------



## jeriibearii (Jul 26, 2014)

Lol!


----------



## thenightgoddess (Apr 2, 2014)

Ive also seen people say that they can mate threw cage bars not recently but it wasn't that long ago. I would still not put them directly next to each other maybe with a little gap or on top of each other just to be safe.


----------



## Pandorascaisse (Mar 12, 2014)

I personally think that any "mating through cage bars" is normally just an excuse for "my bar spacing was too wide". Accidents happen, and I think it's really sad that people have to lie about it. It would be better if they were just honest about it so that people could give them whatever tips they needed - how to hardware cloth a cage, how to have safe playtime, etc. 

However, people are often scared or in denial and think that if they say they mated through the cage bars people will have sympathy for them and they won't have to be bothered with "fixing" anything. We all make mistakes, guys! 

Meanwhile, I wouldn't keep males and female's cages next to each other just because I think that would drive the opposite sex nuts o_o


----------



## jeriibearii (Jul 26, 2014)

If I did ever get males I would get them after the females I had past on.. I just don't have enough space for two cages of appropriate size for both :/ 

But I could see something happening if the bar spacing was just way too big. I'm not really sure how I pictures mating thru the bars would look like but then again I've never seen rats mating normally either so i dont know! xD


----------



## inod3 (Jun 13, 2014)

There's a lot of things that people "know" that may not be completely correct, usually it's just not worth correcting anyone over. If someone thinks their rats can mate through bars they'll probably not let one gender climb on a cage of another gender, which doesn't hurt anything and might be wise anyway to protect toes and such from getting bitten off.


----------

