Pet Forum / Mammals / Rats / March 2004

My rat has a big wheel to exercise in (it's one of those wodent wheels).  You
have to choose wheels carefully tho - most aren't suitable for animals with
tails.

Other than that, it has a lot of space on top of the wardrobe to run around on
(although now it has learnt how to leap of the wardrobe and get onto the floor
it doesn't have the 'freedom of the wardrobe' like it used to).

Now I've got the room rat proofed, it gets let out and can scurry about on the
floor.  The room isn't 100% rat proofed so I have to be there to grab it if it
attempts to go somewhere it shouldn't.

my girl rats have a wobust wodent wheel that they use frequently. the
boys never used the wheel for anything other than storing food for
later.

they love to chase those cat toys that are like a plastic wand with
feathers on the end. all of them will chase it down and "kill" it.
it's hilarious.

---
"and my time is a piece of wax
falling on a termite
who's choking on the splinters" (beck)
http://shattering.org

As soon as I let my boys out of their cage the youngsters (one of my ratties
is an old man - nearly three - and just plods around slowly) charge about
chasing each other so make their own excercise routine!  To get them extra
excited and really bombing about I tickle their back ends, they love this
and hop, skip and jump about like young lambs.  It's so funny :oD

Tracey

My 2 rats are in a cage that's on a table. When I'm home, the door of
the cage is mostly open, so they are free to roam the table (but often
they choose to stay in their cage and sleep..)
Every night, I take them out for playtime. This is either running
around in the bathroom for a while, or they can join me on the sofa
when I'm watching tv. They can hop from the sofa onto another chair,
they like to run around and play for a while and then they cuddle up
beside me and fall asleep.

Klary

A wheel is great for exercise, although, not all rats take to the wheel.
Another great exercise for the rat is cage bar climbing. Do you have an area
in the cage where the rat can climb upwards using the bars? Add a rope and
they will use that too. Put a treat at the very top so the rat needs to
climb up to a top level where sits a treat.
I recently put my mom's rat on a diet and give her strict instructions for
exercise. Her boys don't really like to be out of their cage, very lazy fat
bums... So with the diet, every day they take their rats out, go to the
other end of the room and their rats run real fast back to their cage,
again, they are picked up and the rats once again make a bee line for the
cage... It's been about 3 weeks now and there's already a considerable
change. Although, weight loss should not be done too fast... but slowly,
will make them more healthy. :)