# What cage items does your rat actually use?



## sinnamon (Jul 1, 2015)

I'm curious. I'm looking(drooling) over all the CNs & FNs and wondering if they really run along those cool rope thingies. Or if they like the boxes and hides that folks have put in there. Do they like the PVC pips or the dryer hoses? 

Our girls like the fleece cup type hides and a tube hammock. They also like the rough bird stone like stuff to chew on. We have other regular hammocks, bridges, toys, other fun stuff but all they do is sleep in the tube hammock or on top of each other in the really small litter pan. Wouldn't be my first choice of places to nap, but they like it lol!


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## Rugrats (Jul 29, 2015)

My girls are in love with those crinkle tubes that you get at Petco. So much so that when they destroyed theirs and I took it away they sat around moping and I had to drive out and get them new ones! I literally have back up crinkle tubes because they spend all day sleeping in them and almost never touch the hammocks, although they are sleeping in one hammock today because I put it so low it touches the ground! They also love their lava ledges and the litter box. Only one uses the wheel but she runs in it all night.  I put a rope toy in there but they haven't touched it. Oh well!


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## artgecko (Nov 26, 2013)

Mine love space pods, their wheels, and their bird rope perches (booda I think, the large width 3' long ones that screw onto the cage sides). They also LOVE cardboard boxes.. I give them used tissue and cereal boxes and toilet paper tubes.


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## linkmoon (Aug 24, 2015)

My girls use their chews, hammock and their huts. Pretty much it.


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## cookiebear<3 (Aug 2, 2013)

All of mine have loved hammocks. Flat hammocks, tube hammocks, double hammocks, honeycombe hammocks, cube hammocks. My jasper loves his cuddle cup and his hanging basket lined with pillows.The booda bird perch is really cute if you set it up where they want it. Blankets or fleece to snuggle on, under and shred. Pom poms, foam balls and a ladder they take to get in the pillow basket. My litter box is being used with my young boys like 90% while my girls didn't care where it was. Bird perches (the ones I have are very similar to lava ledges). Hammock ramps  they love taking poptart foils and playing with them.
I don't know my boys just want snuggles, hammocks and treats. And for me to play with them at two am
Edit: oh and cookie loved Pringles cans with the end cut off to make a tube and fastened to cage bars


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## mimsy (Jun 8, 2014)

My girls like a shelf I put at the very top of their cage that I clip a sleep sack to for sleeping in a giant pile. They love to shred paper and fill up the sack with it. They only like hammocks for eating in-they drag their food up to them and eat there like they are their dining rooms. They love wheels, wooden chews. the lava perches they like to sit on and chew. They use ladders, ropes and small plastic baskets to climb from place to place in.

Boys-They are more diverse in sleeping habits-some like to sleep in plastic hanging tubes, some like plastic balls (with out the lids), some like hammocks, some like a blanket on the floor and several love the wood flat platforms my hubby made to sleep on. They like all toys-wooden chews, plastic balls, basically anything small enough to hide somewhere. They also use all the climbing stuff and shelves. None of the boys like wheels.

Everyone likes their litterbox, for it's intended purpose and for storing food and toys in and sometimes blankets. Boys like to use their pee rocks (they like to pee on them and they seem like a good place to sit on to eat), girls dont.

I have the plastic feeding bowls that attach to the cage, and the large ones they like to sleep in sometimes too. I use them them as "toy boxes".

We go through a TON of wood chews. We finally cut down a large branch off a pear tree (that we know hasn't had anything sprayed on it in at least the last decade anyways) and made a huge batch of small blocks out of it, enough to fill a big storage bin. We dyed them with food coloring, soaked em in vinegar and then dried them slowly in the oven to make sure no parasites/mold/fungus or whatever in it. We also made little round platforms for them with it as well to both climb on and chew.

Any cardboard boxes we save as well for both chewing and as hides. My boys like small wooden huts to sleep in as well, my girls don't seem to care about those.

Water bowls are a source of entertainment-they like to wash their faces in it and the boys like to sit on the edge and hang their parts in it...I don't ask questions. The girls require bowls under their water bottles cause they like to stick their hands in them so the water falls over their heads.


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## Willieboo (Oct 22, 2012)

My girls love...the fleece covers. There are literally tons of things in there for them to take to but they like burrowing beneath the fleece, so be it. They are quite frisky though and definitely scale the cage and climb the ropes and lava ledges at night, they just haven't taken much to hammocks, huts, or chews yet, ha.


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## cagedbirdsinging (May 28, 2012)

Space pod. Every rat I've ever know loves it.


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## Fu-Inle (Jan 22, 2015)

Hammocks, rubber balls, toys that hold treats inside, bones (cooked first), hideouts, newspaper. My rats have never been interested in dangling toys or bells though. They prefer something they can shred, chew, sleep in or climb on. Wheels are worth a try but my rats don't care for them.


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## kksrats (Jul 25, 2014)

I use empty oatmeal containers (both the normal and huge ones) instead of PVC. You can easily hang them anywhere with anything and they tend to not attract as much pee as plastic. I leave the outside wrapper on and they love tearing it off and nesting with it when they're not chilling on the inside of the tube. After they destroy the wrapper, I wrap it in wrapping paper so that they can do it again. Does get a bit annoying hearing paper ripping all night, but hey, they love it lol  Other than that I have many different baskets (my rats tend to pick a favorite), an igloo and a tree stump house, plastic baby blocks, cat toys, whimzees (dog dental chews), and cooked chicken bones. I also do the ropes across the cage and my girls do use them, the boys not so much.


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## LilCritter (Feb 25, 2014)

For sleeping, my 7 like hammocks, space pods, baskets, and Silent Spinners. I have a lot of bird foraging toys for their food, that way they get exercise and stimulation trying to get the yummies. I have the expandable tube that you can get at Petco and they like it enough to hide and make holes in it. I have one of those plastic see-though barn houses you see in petstore cages and I use that as a ramp from one level to the next.
I set up the Booda perches so that they're "highways" from one part of the cage to the next. I have a rough bird perch and a lava ledge for their nails, but the perch gets little use and the ledge is just a giant chew toy for them. Drs. Foster and Smith has some great shreddable hanging toys for birds that my rats go crazy for. 
A new favorite hammock for my mischief is a square hammock with the corners sewn together in the middle so that there are 4 holes. So far, they chew it less than the honeycomb one. Fleece and crinkle tunnels, I find just get shredded and peed in. For pouches, I make sure to sew the 2 lays of fleece together as my rats shred the inside layer and then get stuck.


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## diinytt (Jun 15, 2014)

My boys hate hammocks, they refuse to use them. They love boxes of any size whether they can fit in them or not. I hung up a basket instead of the hammock and they love that as well. They don't like those cloth tubes/tunnels, I saw DIY version and I and one and all the did was drag it on top of their food every night to bury the food. I made some foraging toys out of an egg carton that they like to use. I have a knitted blanket on the cage they they love to pull inside and chew up. They like the plastic cat toy balls I put in as well and they love the cardboard tubes from paper towels or toilet paper. They don't like climbing ropes, they just ignore them. And they like the little houses/toys that build for them out of Popsicle sticks.


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## Mr_Mooster (May 9, 2015)

My rats love their bed, lava ledge, rope, willow tunnel, almost everything they have in there. They don't really use their wood chew, barrel, or this new hanging tent I got them. I think they're still figuring out how to use the tent.


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## sinnamon (Jul 1, 2015)

Thanks everyone! I think I'm finally going to bite the bullet and just order the SCN. Make some fleece liners w/ zorb material. I love the baskets I have seen people hang in their cages! I also really like the dig boxes. What can we put in those? card board, paper towels, fleece, newspaper? Are any of those, like the paper towels, too dusty?


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