Fidget
Senior Member
Well, sure, do all you're able to to get a roomy well-coated cage. But I gotta say that in the beginning I had the smallest cheapest cages and up to 5 kids in something half that size. And they were no less happy or healthy or long-lived than having a few kids in this space
It's so easy to tell someone what they should get, but you ought to say that's the ideal, not the necessity. Lots of things come into play, like if you have to leave your kids to go out to work or play then you better give them buddys to play & snuggle with and room to get away from those buddies if they want. But if you go to school or work for 9 hours and your'e home the rest of the time then the minimum size of the cage is gonna be dependant on how much time they spend in it. I've had a group of kids that always slept in a clump in one favorite hideyhouse and I was home all the time and when they weren't asleep they had an open cage - their cage could have been a a shoebox! Other kids I've needed to have a few hideyhouses in the cage cause some liked their space. It's really more about the group dynamics & the space & opportunity available to them than cage size.
It just rots my sox when I think of a good parent with happy well-looked-after kids looking at a post like this and suddenly feeling like they're not doing right by their kids (the worst thing any of us can feel) because they have 3 or 4 or 5 kids in an un-powder-coated cage that size. If you're hoarding or breeding it's wrong, they shouldn't spend 24 hours or even 20 a day in there, but if you have 5 kids in that cage and they are out running around in lots of space and getting love & personal interaction with their human 8 hours a day even that's worth more than a huge powder-coated cage with a human who's too busy to let them out or interact.
As long as you're multiplying square inches by # of ratties, throw time out multipied by square feet and individual attention into the equation. And don't powder-coat the results!
It's so easy to tell someone what they should get, but you ought to say that's the ideal, not the necessity. Lots of things come into play, like if you have to leave your kids to go out to work or play then you better give them buddys to play & snuggle with and room to get away from those buddies if they want. But if you go to school or work for 9 hours and your'e home the rest of the time then the minimum size of the cage is gonna be dependant on how much time they spend in it. I've had a group of kids that always slept in a clump in one favorite hideyhouse and I was home all the time and when they weren't asleep they had an open cage - their cage could have been a a shoebox! Other kids I've needed to have a few hideyhouses in the cage cause some liked their space. It's really more about the group dynamics & the space & opportunity available to them than cage size.
It just rots my sox when I think of a good parent with happy well-looked-after kids looking at a post like this and suddenly feeling like they're not doing right by their kids (the worst thing any of us can feel) because they have 3 or 4 or 5 kids in an un-powder-coated cage that size. If you're hoarding or breeding it's wrong, they shouldn't spend 24 hours or even 20 a day in there, but if you have 5 kids in that cage and they are out running around in lots of space and getting love & personal interaction with their human 8 hours a day even that's worth more than a huge powder-coated cage with a human who's too busy to let them out or interact.
As long as you're multiplying square inches by # of ratties, throw time out multipied by square feet and individual attention into the equation. And don't powder-coat the results!
