Upgrading The Cage

[Jake S.]

I just placed an order online for a much bigger cage for my rats. Right now I have an aquarium with a cage topper and I absolutely despise the small space and lack of ventilation. The new one is much bigger (made for ferrets) and I'm really excited about the room they'll have.
My big concern is that most of the cage has wire floors and I am terrified of bumblefoot. I've heard a bit about using fleece as a good liner. I was wondering what other people use. I'm looking for something reusable if that is even an option as far as washing it and putting it back in.
What are you guys using? What would you recommend?

 

[SQ]

When I have used cages with wire floors I cut a thick piece of linoleum to fit and covered the floors with it so that the floor would be solid. Then I used a fleece blanket over the linoleum floor. The linoleum was easy to wipe down and did not damage the rust proofing (powder coating/paint) on the wire.
On small wire balconies I cut a dish drain tray to fit and used zip/cable ties to attach it. It too made a solid floor and could easily be wiped down.

Depending on the cage, others have removed the wire flooring or found a pan that would fit into their cage and could be easily removed.

With a ferret cage, yo may need to cover the outside of the cage with wire such as hardware cloth because the bar spacing may be too wide for small rats

Below is an example. This was a small, temporary cage and you can see the linoleum on the second level and the dish drain trays on the balconies. As you can see the bottom level does not have a wire floor and sits in a pan. Obviously the cage wasn't being used in the picture since there are no hammocks, litter boxes, wheels, houses, dishes, water dishes water bottles, etc

 

[jorats]

Like SQ wrote, I just covered the floors. But interestingly, wire floors really don't cause bumblefoot. Bumblefoot in rats is more like bedsores. So keep the cage clean, the rats slim and some padding and you should be fine.