# thinking of building large uncovered rat pen, how high do the walls need to be?



## rudyauction509 (Sep 26, 2013)

I'm thinking about going and getting a few 4x8 sheets of plywood and building my rats a nice 3 foot by 6 foot pen to live in instead of their 2x2x3 cage. I can't afford all of the materials needed to make a nice lid so how high do I need to make the walls? I have never seen my rats jump more than a foot but I've never given them a reason to. The last thing I need is to spend a week building this only to have all 13 rats jump out while I'm sleeping! I'm going to angle the walls back slightly and sand the plywood smooth so there's no footholds. I'm also thinking of connecting their old cage to the new pen with some pvc pipe.


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## rudyauction509 (Sep 26, 2013)

anyone?...


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## Grawrisher (Sep 10, 2013)

I'd think pretty high, even if you smooth it they could probably climb it, or jump it, penny discovered the other day that she could easily jump out o the tub, and she's just a little one, a determined rat will find a way, now if your rats are like aris, thy don't want a way out, they want a safe corner to hide, they wanna stay in the cage, you want em out? Too **** bad


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## rudyauction509 (Sep 26, 2013)

Grawrisher said:


> I'd think pretty high, even if you smooth it they could probably climb it, or jump it, penny discovered the other day that she could easily jump out o the tub, and she's just a little one, a determined rat will find a way, now if your rats are like aris, thy don't want a way out, they want a safe corner to hide, they wanna stay in the cage, you want em out? Too **** bad
> 
> 
> Sent from Petguide.com Free App


Most of my rats can barely get out of the tub and are comfortable in their cage, this pen will become their new page so I'm thinking 2 feet will be enough, if I need more I can add a cardboard overhang to knock them back into the pen when they jump. I'll test their jumping and climbing ability by putting them in a 5 gallon bucket that's just over 1 foot high with a 2 foot 2x4 in it. If they have a hard time then 2 feet above the highest level will be plenty.


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## Seiko (Sep 4, 2013)

I recently got a playpen for my rats with high walls and vertical bars. Jackson's sort of an escape artist but I was confident that the playpen would be able to contain him. It's like... what? Three feet tall?









I took this picture half an hour ago. He figured out how to get to the top.

Your walls should do a much better job at keeping them in, but as a reference Jackson was able to jump up to about half the height of the walls each time he tried to escape. I'd suggest making the walls at least 2 feet tall, though I'd probably go 2.5 just to be cautious.


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## nanashi7 (Jun 5, 2013)

I wouldn't use a wall less than 3ft tall. I've seen my rats crawl up corners of walls with sheer strength and not a single point to hold to.


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## Mitsy (Apr 8, 2013)

I think that would be neat but a few questions have you thought about how your going to make levels for them to climb? Or so you can hang hammocks for them? Also what if you have to go away for a few days would still feel comfortable with that cage? And how are you going to keep it clean and not smell sense wood can get really smelly?. 
I thought I would give you a few questions to think about incase you hadn't thought of this. Also I think you would have to keep an eye on them for a while and experiment with them jumping. 


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## rudyauction509 (Sep 26, 2013)

Mitsy said:


> I think that would be neat but a few questions have you thought about how your going to make levels for them to climb? Or so you can hang hammocks for them? Also what if you have to go away for a few days would still feel comfortable with that cage? And how are you going to keep it clean and not smell sense wood can get really smelly?.
> I thought I would give you a few questions to think about incase you hadn't thought of this. Also I think you would have to keep an eye on them for a while and experiment with them jumping.
> 
> 
> Sent from Petguide.com Free App


I ended up converting an old cabinet I had sitting in storage, the walls are 3 feet high, I have shelves up to 1 foot off the ground, I don't really hang things for them but I do make plenty of wood boxes and climbing towers for them. I have a camera set up to record them for the first few days and overnight not one of them even tried to escape. (the software on the camera only records if there's motion in a selected part of the camera's view, in this case the tops of the walls) I also made the bottom replacable and the walls have a clear coat of food-safe paint. So far so good, but I still have to make a bunch of shelves and boxes to take up all of the empty space. I also made half of one of the walls open up so I can interact with the rats easily and am looking for materials to make a window so I can see in without standing over the pen.


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## Mitsy (Apr 8, 2013)

Oh ok and I think you should find away to hang at lest one hammock rats love them and look so cute piled in them, you could screw hooks into the bottom of one of the shells and hang it from there.


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## Mitsy (Apr 8, 2013)

Also I would love to see pictures of it 


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## rudyauction509 (Sep 26, 2013)

Pics attached


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## rudyauction509 (Sep 26, 2013)

So far everything is going well, I'm adding and modifying their wood toys daily and no one has even tried to escape. Tomorrow I'm going to get a huge bag of aspen bedding to add to what I have as the bedding is only an inch thick. Some of the females I rescued from a snake owner are obviously pregnant, so I may be doing another one of these for them so I can separate the females with litters from the rest of the pack. After the babies are raised and either adopted out or moved into the pack, I'll connect them into one massive cage, but that may have to wait until I get a smaller bed. I have 2 more similar cabinets sitting in storage without shelves and one without doors and a local lumber yard gave me access to a massive pile of wood scraps so I should have everything I need.


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## rudyauction509 (Sep 26, 2013)

I cut up another cabinet this evening and ended up with a 4 foot by 2 foot 2 level extension. I won't have bedding until tomorrow and the lumber yard was closed so no wood towers yet but I managed to get the 2 sections connected. This cage can hold 28 rats by the cage calculators posted on this forum, I have 15 now. I plan to add a 3rd and possibly 4th level to the extension because its in my closet so I would have a perfect view of the different levels from my bed and no reason to keep it small. The 2 sections are connected by a ~3 inch wide hole cut near the floor where the sections overlap. I guess this is what happens when I have 2 drills and a saw on a rainy day!


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