How many rats can fit in my cage?

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T

tibbles

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hi everyone! My female rat is pregnant (feel free to check out my other thread about it!) and she should be giving birth any day now. When she does I’m planning on keeping a couple of the female kittens as roommates for her as we will be seperating her from her brothers to stop more litters and don’t want her to get lonely. My cages dimensions are:

Height: 100cm / 40”
Width: 70cm / 28”
Depth: 40cm / 16”

It also has four levels and several hammocks.

How many females would you recommend keeping in there? Thanks for the help!
 
I’d also like to mention that I let my rats free roam my room for about 12 hours a day (it’s very rat proofed) but have constant access to their cage.
 
SQ said:
base is too small for rats. Rats need a lot of horizontal space and need at least 30 in by 18 but bigger is better
Click to expand...
On all the online calculators I tried it said that I could fit around 3-4 male rats so I assumed I could fit more females. It’s a metre tall so lots of climbing room.
 
rats need horizontal space as well as vertical space and horizontal space is the most important.
The cage calculator looks at the amount of cubic feet not the size of the base, to make calculations.
The cage calculators I am aware of do not give recommendations based on the sex of the rats.

Regardless of how high the cage is, I would not use that cage for any rats (except possibly as a temporary cage,) because the base is too small for rats
 
Last edited:
Hi Tibbles. Your cage is over ten cubic feet, so it should be fine for 3 or 4 rats, male or female. Typically, females are much more active than males so, although they are smaller, they need at least as much space as males. Since you let your ratties out for lots of free ranging time, they should do well. Lots of hammocks, hides, and toys of all sorts also help to maximize the space. I understand that's the cage you have and you did not expect babies. As it'll be hard enough finding good homes for them, you could certainly keep 2, or possibly 3, of the female babies with the mama. Please do separate the males now, though, because she will come back into heat, and can get pregnant, within hours of giving birth! I hope all goes well for your surprise family.
 
If they're getting 12 hours a day free roaming then the cage sounds fine, if they only had an hour it'd be a different story, just make sure you put lots of hammocks and boxes in the cage
 
this cage is too small for any rats because the horizontal space is way too small.

At this tie of year cages are often on sale.
Please buy a good cage that has a base at least 30 inches by 18 inches, with height and large levels - but bigger then this is better

Check out pet stores, amazon etc ….. not sure what is available where you are but they need a much better cage ….. even a large rabbit cage at least 39 to 40 inches long would be good ...… If the rats are small you would need to cover the outside of the cage with hardware cloth (sold in hardware stores) …… large rabbit cages are often less expensive and often resold second hand online etc …… Please see the following to get an idea of what I mean https://www.ratshackforum.com/threads/fixed-up-rabbit-cages.23588/#post-355655
 

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