# New Rat Owner: Cleaning Cages How-to?



## Marilynx (Jun 1, 2015)

Okay, I have come to the conclusion that the hardest part of cleaning the rat cage is CATCHING everyone to put them in the transfer cage while we clean! Five down (homemade jerky treats as bribe!) and three are running in the wheel (how they are managing that without stepping on each others' tails, I do NOT know!) and are disinclined to come out. I feel like I need a fish scoop net!


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## Camelle (Feb 11, 2013)

I have a boy that just doesn't like to be touched so rather than trying to catch him and stressing him out I usually just leave him and he figures it out as I'm moving everything


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## raindear (Mar 3, 2015)

Over time, they get to know you and you establish a routine and it becomes easier. One of the things I like about a DCN is that I can put everyone downstairs while I clean upstairs, then put them upstairs while I clean downstairs. But it will get easier over time and with experience.


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## Marilynx (Jun 1, 2015)

raindear said:


> Over time, they get to know you and you establish a routine and it becomes easier. One of the things I like about a DCN is that I can put everyone downstairs while I clean upstairs, then put them upstairs while I clean downstairs. But it will get easier over time and with experience.


<wry grin> It will HAVE to get easier! We have the fleece covers on the ramps in the DCN, and can't get the ramp between levels to lock. It just won't close!

That is what I was planning on doing -- putting everyone upstairs while I did the downstairs and vice-versa. 

I finally managed to catch everyone (I put their pictures in Meet My Rat) and put them in the transfer cage... and BOY, am I glad I did, because my husband didn't latch the gate tightly, and all of a sudden I had the Beagle and the younger Dachshund in with me... the Dachshund jumped into the lower level of the CND! (Ratties are going to love that when they go back in!)

I wish I had some place to roll the CND so I could let the girls out to play while I cleaned, but I do not... I have to be so VERY careful of their safety! I get to take them out and play with them after the Hounds are crated for the night, and before I let them out in the morning. 

The girls have figured that part out, and most of them come to the front of the cage when I talk to them, because I always have tasty treats.

We're not doing too badly, since they have only had them a week.


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## Marilynx (Jun 1, 2015)

Camelle said:


> I have a boy that just doesn't like to be touched so rather than trying to catch him and stressing him out I usually just leave him and he figures it out as I'm moving everything


The girls are only about 8 weeks old, and they are so small and so agile that I am terrified of them slipping past me as I am trying to clean. Keeping track of eight is a bit of a zoo!


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## lost_whisper (Nov 11, 2014)

It will get easier as the rats learn to trust you.
Btw, if I were you I would try to familiarize your dogs with your rats. I have 2 dogs and now 4 rats and my dogs would never attack any animal. Normally showing them a new animal and saying a big "no" if they don't seem harmlessly interested is enough to discourage any bad thoughts. This way if your rats escape the chances that they get hurt by your dogs are minimum. After all, dogs are usually good buddies with anything that has fur.


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## moonkissed (Dec 26, 2011)

Only one of my rats is a brat to come out. She hides in her box & I just remove the entire box with her in it. The rest of my rats, as soon as I open the door most of them are already out of the cage before I blink!

Definitely with time they should come around  

I am going to assume u have the cage like in the living room or something? Maybe put the dogs in another room or outside just incase someone gets loose during the transfer? I am lucky I have a rat room. I just close the door and let them run around.


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## Marilynx (Jun 1, 2015)

lost_whisper said:


> It will get easier as the rats learn to trust you.
> Btw, if I were you I would try to familiarize your dogs with your rats. I have 2 dogs and now 4 rats and my dogs would never attack any animal. Normally showing them a new animal and saying a big "no" if they don't seem harmlessly interested is enough to discourage any bad thoughts. This way if your rats escape the chances that they get hurt by your dogs are minimum. After all, dogs are usually good buddies with anything that has fur.


I am working on the familiarization. The problem is... we live near the river levee, and there are wild rats in the neighborhood. Both dogs have caught and killed wild rats before. 

It's going to take a good bit of work to persuade them that THESE ratties are different from THOSE rats.

My Beagle goes absolutely hysterical if I go in the gate with the Girls -- she is convinced the Girls will hurt me. When I come out, she leaps into my lap and sniffs me all over.

My younger Dachshund managed to pop the gate open and ran in and jumped into the lower part of the CND. I got him out and he let me take him out of the enclosure when he found he could not get to them.

Foresight: all the girls were in the transfer crate on top while I was cleaning. 

The girls aren't afraid of the dogs -- they grew up with a Great Dane and a Staffordshire. They know that they are safe in their cage. And I normally put the dogs in their crates if I am going to have the girls out to play with them. 

I am just being ultra-careful because of past history. My senior Dachshund (age 17.25) was also a ratter ten years ago when we were invaded by wild rats after Hurricane Katrina. (I did not train him to be a ratter. He just did it.) After we got the Girls last Saturday, he went in, sniffed the cage, looked at me as if to say, "You're crazy, Missy, you know that? But these are yours, so, okay", and then walked away. HE can tell the difference between "Missy's rats" and "the bad rats." He is working on training the Younger Generation. The Beagle was shrieking hysterically, and he got up, walked over to her, shouldered her away from the gate, and then LOOKED at her. She went GULP! and went and lay down under my desk. The younger Dachs is currently lying quietly by the gate, watching Badger and Fawn run on the Wodent Wheel.

And that's fine. Watching is okay. Hunting is not.

It depends on what breed of dog you have as to whether they are "friends with anything in fur."


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## Marilynx (Jun 1, 2015)

moonkissed said:


> Only one of my rats is a brat to come out. She hides in her box & I just remove the entire box with her in it. The rest of my rats, as soon as I open the door most of them are already out of the cage before I blink!
> 
> Definitely with time they should come around
> 
> I am going to assume u have the cage like in the living room or something? Maybe put the dogs in another room or outside just in case someone gets loose during the transfer? I am lucky I have a rat room. I just close the door and let them run around.


I truly WISH I had a rat room! The only place that might work is our bathroom -- and I cannot get the CND down the hall to same because I have bookcases on either side of that hall! I did put the Hounds in their crates initially, but once we FINALLY got all the girls out (and discovered some changes we wanted to make in the organization of the cage) and they were in the transfer cage up on top of the CND, my husband let them out. It took us so long to catch everyone that it was the dogs' dinner-time!

The CND is in the front hall, between the living room and the computer room, and there are metal gates closing off access to that hall so the dogs cannot harrass the Girls. (Beagle was shrieking, and the Girls just looked at her like, "And your problem is....?")

I have a play pen for the ratties and once I get a little more organized, I will set it up and, with the dogs in their crates, will be able to take them out to play.

I hope to make some agility equipment for the Girls so that we can have some fun.


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## lost_whisper (Nov 11, 2014)

It seems that your doggies are getting it any way! I would of course be very careful and of course you know your dogs very well and you know what they are capable of, but I still think they might have a chance to behave around the rats. If they were cats I would be a bit more concerned since they are a lot wilder than domestic canines.
I believe that with love and proper training almost any dog (of course not all dogs, that would be silly to state) can learn to leave other animals alone and even love them.

My family and I once adopted a 7-year-old dog that would kill and freaking EAT any cat he saw. He was fast as an arrow but way more deadly. There were not stray cats in 5 blocks from where he lived. We were truly terrified of him since we hadn't had any dog before that, and he was pretty large and scary and we all had seen him killing cats in the neighbourhood. Once we took him in (well, actually my father had a fight with his previous owners because they used to hit him real bad and once we found him with his head opened and bleeding so my father just took him from them) we started to work with him which involved lots of affection and games and tennis balls for him to destroy when he got anxious and managed to teach him not to hurt cats and ended up adopting a kitten ourselves. The ex cat killer and the kitten slept together every single day. That dog ended up being one of the best dogs I've met in my life although before adopting him everyone thought that he had to be euthanized (or shot at as some neighbours had previously discussed). That dog never hurt a cat again in his life and he became a hero when he put his own body between a car and my baby sister who had let go of my mother's hand and tried to cross the street. The dog was mildly hurt but my little sister would have had it much worse. Best dog I tell you.

Not letting your dogs get wild rats if possible is the way to go I think, but I'm sure that as soon as your (if they ever do, of course) dogs realise they are not allowed to hurt your ratties I think they'll stop hurting any rats. 

Of my present dogs, my small pooch mix was terrified when Sake got home but now they are really good friends and love to play and cuddle together. 2 days ago I adopted 3 lab rat rescues and now my poochie can't wait to kiss them and be friends with them. She even cries when I pick them up until I put them closer to her so she can at least smell them! Of course she is a poodle mix so she is just a 5 kg baby girl with a beautiful heart, but still. My older dog is another story because he was never scared of anything and he loves any breathing creature and for example he always leads me to birds in need when we go for walks. He even slept with a crab once, no joking. He is an angel.

Of course you might find yourself in the situation that your dogs don't really want to accept the rats because they are dogs and every dog has their own personality and that might include a stronger hunting instinct. In that case it seems you have it figured with the crates and paying attention to your girls while they are out playing. I have cats and most of them are fine and understand they don't have to attack smaller animals but also one of them doesn't want to learn to behave with rats or birds, so I just take her out of the room where I have the smaller animals when I'm not there and it's good. They are animals after all.

I'm sorry for the long message, I still need to keep it short when I write in English. I'll learn someday I hope


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## Marilynx (Jun 1, 2015)

Lol... I write long stuff, too!

As I said... I'm being VERY careful with the girls. I do, in fact, know my Hounds very well -- and trying to not "let" them catch wild rats is kind of like trying to persuade wild rats not to venture in our yard. The dogs have free access to the fenced yard, and if the rats make the mistake of coming in our yard, they are goners. 

Hence, my extreme care. 

I have things set up so that the dogs are a minimum of three feet away from the cage at all times.

If the Hounds don't accept the ratties, well, so be it. We'll manage.

In the meantime, the Girls aren't too worried about the dogs... like I said, the Beagle was baying at thm and they just looked at her like, "And your problem is...?"



That is quite a story about your rescued dog! My Beagle is also a rescue -- there are people who run hunting packs on the levee, and if a pup doesn't stay with the pack, they abandon it. She turned up on my doorstep on a cold November night, scared, hungry, and shivering.... and my senior Dachshund and his sister admitted her to their pack. We lost the sister three years ago to cancer. 

We'll see....


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## Marilynx (Jun 1, 2015)

Today's cage change went MUCH faster. Six of the girls came right to me (homemade jerky is tasty, Missy!), and I was able to catch Fawn, who then settled down in my hands and nibbled some jerky. The eighth one had chewed a hole in the fleece and was UNDER the liner. So I scooted her toward the hole, and when she came out, I picked her up, cuddled her, and gave her a treat. I was quite pleased to find that, once again, they have not been peeing directly on the fleece, except incidentally -- they've been using the litter boxes. The fleece covers were dry. Wiped the trays down, put fresh covers on, cleaned out the litter boxes, etc. etc. Only took me about 90 minutes, and at that, I will probably get faster. I had placed a 10" piece of 4" diameter PVC pipe in the transport cage with them, and when I went to put them back in the clean cage, all eight of them had stuffed themselves into the tube. (They won't be able to do that when they're grown!) "Well," said I, "that sure makes putting the lot of you back in easy!" I sense a visit to Home Depot for more PVC coming on....


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