# Rats under fleece in bottom of rat cage



## KaylaMarie (Aug 13, 2015)

How can I keep the rats from crawling under the fleece? My cage bottom is the plastic sort, that comes up on the sides, \_________/ Like that, and I'm clipping the fleece on the top, the only place I can, but the rats crawl under it and can get stuck. I don't know what to do about this and I need a solution. They Have three huts in their home, as well as I sewed a little pocket for them to hide inside, but the baby insists on crawling under the fleece.

Edit: This is the cage for reference.
http://www.petsmart.com/small-pet/c...catid-600022?_t=pfm=category&pfmvalue=faceted


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## LilCritter (Feb 25, 2014)

Clipping fleece just ended with torn liners and trapped rats for me. I had to weigh my stuff down with tiles. In the end, I switched to aspen bedding. It smells less and doesn't need a tiles jigsaw puzzle to stay in place.


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## hrl20100 (May 1, 2013)

With that style of cages, most people just use a loose substrate such as aspen or paper based bedding. The bottom of the cage is deep enough to provide the rats with substrate and if they wanted to dig and burrow, they can. People tend to only use fleece when they have a critter nation or similar style of cage as the substrate will just get kicked out. (Believe me, it does xD)
I have a critter nation type cage and stopped using the fleece, purely because it got destroyed practically straight away and they'd just crawl under it. It was a waste of money and took far too much time replacing it all.


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## Mikiz (Jul 17, 2015)

Tell me about it! My girls have decided that sleeping between the layers of my fleece liners (that were VERY expensive!) is much better than sleeping in one of the 4 hammocks or the soft tube they have! The boys are happy to sleep on top of the liners and so far (touch wood) they haven't even bothered with a nibble. 
And I only have the shallow DCN trays, and no way to get deeper ones, although I'm sure if I had deeper ones they'd get themselves stuck wedged right down beside it!


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## KaylaMarie (Aug 13, 2015)

Yeah! They love to hide so I've sewed them lots of things. I'm actually using the fleece because it's cheaper and more dust-free than the substrate but I guess if it doesn't work for the girls I'll have to go for something else. I've actually purchased some cookie sheets and put them in the bottom of the cage, to wrap the fleece around, which seems to have worked well. The cookie sheets aren't quite the right size though, so I might see if there's some sort of metal or heavy plastic that I could buy measured to fit the inside of the cage floor.


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## StonerGirlandHerRatties (Aug 25, 2015)

A few quick ideas, bulldog clips, food bowls placed on edges or corners, maybe leave a few fabric squares lying about the cage (or some form of safe bedding material so if they do want to climb under some fabric they have the choice, placing anything heavy on the edges should help really ^.^


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## raindear (Mar 3, 2015)

You could buy corrugated plastic sheets (http://www.homedepot.com/p/Plaskoli...C-_-NavPLPHorizontal1_rr-_-NA-_-202043334-_-N) or flat plastic sheets (http://www.homedepot.com/p/PLASTEX-1-16-in-x-4-ft-x-8-ft-Plastic-Panel-63003/202090190) and cut them to fit if that is what you want to do. I just sew double fleece to size and put fleece pocket hammocks on top of them for the rats to hide in. So far neither of my boys shows interest in hanging hammocks.


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## KaylaMarie (Aug 13, 2015)

Yeah, that's a good idea. I'd have to check it out to make sure it wasn't too light for them to just lift up, but I definitely like this idea!!


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## KaylaMarie (Aug 13, 2015)

These are good ideas. I've put some extra fleece scraps in now!


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## Smilebud (Jul 31, 2012)

My solution is!!!! Big rocks. My friend also uses carpet cut to size and velcroed down, she has a similar cage.


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