# They won't stop pooping on EVERYTHING!



## Drakmanka (Jul 27, 2015)

Hello all.

My current pair of boys have been with me for just over nine months now, and are nearly a year old. Yet, they STILL poop everywhere and on everything! When they were babies, I assumed they would grow out of it. Learn to "hold it" when they were out with me, and start designating areas in their cage. All rats do that, right? At least, all my previous rats have.
These two have designated some areas... unfortunately they are in all the wrong places. Their favorite place to poop is on one of their hard-plastic(thankfully reasonably easy to wash) platforms in the upper reaches of their cage. I tried using litter pans with substrate, but they just made nests in the litter pans and continued to poop on the platform itself.
I had resigned myself to just sterilizing the platform each week, but now I've caught them SLEEPING on top of their poop! It's one thing if a rat wants to sleep in his or her poop corner, when it's mostly buried under substrate. But directly on top of their feces? I think not!

I'm completely bewildered by this behavior and have absolutely no idea how to get them to stop. I don't want them, myself, or anyone else who handles them, to get sick, and if they keep this up, one or more of those things is bound to happen. 

???


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## ElectricPaladin (Jan 18, 2016)

My girls do a limited version of this, too. When they poop in their hammock, the poop doesn't seem to last for long. I think they push it out so it falls down to the litter below. BUT, they don't seem to have so much of a "poop corner" in the litter on the ground floor. They just sort of poop everywhere.


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## moonkissed (Dec 26, 2011)

It is normal and pretty common. Many rats have some luck with litter training but definitely not all rats. 

All u can do is manage it. 

Spot cleaning the poop. Every day or even multiple times a day just pick up all the poop in the cage.
Placing multiple litter boxes in the spots they seem to potty most often.

Honestly I would remove the plastic shelf or cover it with something. I seriously hate those shelfs anyway personally. I always remove them and use hammocks everywhere. The bare plastic puts them at risk for bumblefoot- they will pee and poo on the plastic and it just sits there. They then walk through, lay in it, stand in it. Yuck.

As for sleeping in it, try to make other beds more likable. Adding alot of other beds/hammocks, putting them in ideal spots, etc...


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## Drakmanka (Jul 27, 2015)

I think I'm going to try replacing the platforms with hammocks; they have one(well, a hammock/tube) and they love to sleep in it. No poops in that thing. Thanks for the suggestions.


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## tekwich (Jan 22, 2016)

> ...now I've caught them SLEEPING on top of their poop!


LOL sorry I straight up laughed when I read that. I don't think I've seen mine sleep on their poop yet, but maybe I just haven't noticed.

I have one rat, who, after setting up the litter box and diligently moving their poops to the litter box everyday for a week, totally understood and only pooped there. He actually climbed out of his 3rd floor sleep area just to go to the bottom floor litter pan. And his brother, after a month of this, continued to poop wherever he pleased. I even tried giving them treats when I catch them pooping in the litter pans. The only consistency I noticed was he'd only poop in corners, so I strapped little $1.50 plastic lunch boxes to all the corners with a little paper litter, and the poops... seem to be collected on the bottom, not on the top levels. This went on just fine.

Fast forward a couple years, I have these big beautiful new boy rats. My god, they really poop everywhere. Right next to the food bowl, middle of the second level, etc. Zero regard for poop location; go when poop has to go.

I would say if they consistently poop in a terrible spot, yeah, change what goes there. The little plastic boxes with litter worked for me, well, for one rat. Maybe I have to go back to scooping poop everyday with a little spoon? They do notice what you do and remember, to an extent. Like.. puppies, they want to be good, but they have no clue.

Good luck!


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## Drakmanka (Jul 27, 2015)

I'm glad to know it's not just my boys that are so lazy and/or careless. I've had male rats before, and they were always as fastidious as my females, so this has caught me off-guard completely. Until I can change their cage layout up to encourage pooping just in the main litter pan at the bottom, I think I'm going to just have to keep clearing out the poops that collect(and boy are there a lot of them) on the platforms. They do seem to favor one over the rest, so that keeps things contained a little...
It wouldn't even be so bad if they would stop peeing on their poops afterwards as well, and then treading it all down, which leads to this nasty oily, sticky... rather smelly mess that requires a dishwasher to completely remove if I don't catch it within an hour. It actually bleached white the plastic in a couple spots, and I shudder to think what the fumes from such a substance would do to little rattie lungs!


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## KayRatz (Apr 5, 2007)

my girls have pooped in their wheel and then mashed it... super nasty. cleaning day is nigh lol


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## Thor (Oct 1, 2015)

My boys do exactly the same! They even poo en their space pod and all 4 of them climb in there, some how, and sleep!! 
I have been trying for ages and I have noticed that they didn't use at all the tray I had so I got them this litter tray. They do use it but they also poo all over the cage, there is no specific place but everywhere. Maybe they are too lazy to get out of bed to go a use the pan?


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## fox2296 (Dec 30, 2015)

My girls are still pretty young but yeah they poop everywhere. However, they have yet to poop or urinate on me or anything when I take them out. Only thing I don't like is that they pee and poop in their food bowl while there is still food in it....which means I end up throwing out a lot of food that hasnt been eaten


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## Augustine (Nov 14, 2011)

Thor said:


> My boys do exactly the same! They even poo en their space pod and all 4 of them climb in there, some how, and sleep!!
> I have been trying for ages and I have noticed that they didn't use at all the tray I had so I got them this litter tray. They do use it but they also poo all over the cage, there is no specific place but everywhere. Maybe they are too lazy to get out of bed to go a use the pan?


I've been told that rats aren't fond of litter pans with those grates on 'em. I imagine that removing them might help.

Otherwise, I've seen many have great success using the methods detailed in this video:


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