# Safe dirt?



## Ratlettes (Mar 29, 2016)

I've been reading a lot about safe and nonsafe soil but it got really confusing to be honest so I'm making my own thread. Is there any good soil I can buy at ordinary places like Walmart? I want to fill up my old 20G terrarium with it for a nice dig box


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## JAnimal (Jul 23, 2014)

There are soils made for reptiles that are safe for rats. I don't think they should be that expensive and you can find them online or in a petstore. Also if you hide some treats in the dig box it will make it even more fun for the rats.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Any sterile potting soil that doesn't have chemical fertilizer added should be OK. As would be outdoor soil, you can bake it in the oven for an hour or two to kill the bugs and worms depending on how much dirt you are using. The outdoor soil would actually be perfectly safe for your rats even without baking, it might even be good for them and contain healthy bacteria, but you might also bring bugs into your house in it. I once brought in a palm tree that contained an ant colony in the pot... things got interesting that night.


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## Ratlettes (Mar 29, 2016)

Sorry to hear about the ants haha but thanks


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## Ratlettes (Mar 29, 2016)

My soil outside is filled with worms, though, I don't wish to mess with the ecosystem


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## Gribouilli (Dec 25, 2015)

Get something that says organic so you don't get any chemicals in it. Bake it at 400F for 40mins.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Outdoors our rats naturally sniff everything and sometimes they dig into the dirt. They are naturally soaking up all kinds of bacteria and other microorganisms... but then when I'm outdoors I do the same. I sit down or lay down in the park with the rats and I get all kinds of microorganisms all over myself and I breathe the air just like they do. Now my mom, born in 1921 claimed that dirt was healthy for children... And honestly, I think it's healthy for rats too. Our rats never get URI's for example. Among all of those microorganisms there may be some bad things, but there are also more likey lots of good microbes. Rats weren't designed to live in sterile environments, they live in subways, dumps and nature everywhere... and they thrive. 

So, yes... it's not a great idea to bring in worms and bugs, but there's no need to sterilize the soil either, unless you want to. Exposing your rats to nature, might actually be good for them... In fact, I've worked with people training several shoulder rats all around the country, and so far not one ever got a URI... It might just be luck, it's certainly not a scientific fact... but I think that the evidence is starting to add up in favor of rats benefiting from exposure to nature. And I won't even go into the gross and disgusting stuff I've seen our rats find and eat outdoors. I know it might surprise some of the folks here, but our furry friends are actually rats... they are designed to live in filthy places and eat garbage... and they not only can survive, they can thrive and you should see how happy your rat is when it can wrestle something moldy from a pile of determined ants... 


When I was a kid, back when mastodons still roamed the earth, kids played outside and even with all of the nasty diseases that weren't cured yet, kids played outdoors and I tend to remember we were generally healthier.


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## Gribouilli (Dec 25, 2015)

Just like a corgi is very different than a wild wolf, fancy pet rats and wild rats are two different things. Wild rats are under the harsh reality of natural selection, while fancy rats are selectively bred by breeders, lol. Not the same thing at all. Use sterilized soil only. If you got your rats from a pet store, than it is even more important that you sterilize your soil as pet store rats come from rat mills where no selective breeding for health take place at all.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

First watch a few seconds of the following video

https://vid.me/BzNQ 

You might notice at the beginning of the video Fuzzy Rat was sniffing around in the grass for quite a while before I let her lead me back to the car. And as she goes along she keeps her nose to the ground always sniffing...

And yes, she was a pet shop rat... And yes, she had terrible genetics and eventually succumbed to mammary tumors at 2 1/4 years old. Aside from the tumors, she never saw a vet... And when the rats and the humans in our house got the nasty bronchitis that went around a few years ago, she was the first to recover... I did 3 courses of antibiotics to get rid of it... she was better in a week, followed by our other rat and she was two years old and already had tumors at the time. Pet rats might be hot house flowers, but it's not due to genetics... Lab rats, commercial rats and even some breeder rats aren't exposed to nature... and the good things that they need from the real world, that's why they become hot house flowers... at least that's my experience.... Some of our rats have come from hobby breeders, one was part wild and the rest have come from pet shops who obtained them from a commercial breeder... Health wise they have been bomb proof, except for the tumors in the commercial rats. Well, aside from mites(from new rats we adopted)... and larval deer ticks (from free ranging in the woods). 


And before I get accused of favoring pet shop rats...

This is Misty Rat... she's from a hobby breeder

https://vid.me/SgmU

She's also a true shoulder rat, and she doesn't get sick either....


Millions of years of living outdoors in the most hostile climates in the world have made rats survivors and a few generations in captivity haven't changed that all that much. I honestly believe that rats have a symbiotic relationship with some microbes in the environment. Spending their whole lives without contact with nature, might not be a good thing in my opinion... Again that's just my opinion... I can only back it up with a few dozen shoulder rats that I've personally trained or coached their owners. And by the way, so far no indoor rat has gotten sick from exposure to our rats or ourselves, even when I don't encourage it.

I might add that our true shoulder rats are trained and tested, and we've been training outdoor rats for a long time... taking your rats outdoors is dangerous and it's a great way to get them killed or lost. If you like the vids, I'll get around to posting more this summer, please don't take your indoor rats outside without proper training, even if you agree that nature is good for them.


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