What To Put at Bottom of Cage?

[yogarat]

New member here. Already introduced myself

Interested to know what you normally put at the bottom of your rat's cage. Is felt material ok? To lie it flat and then clean up any droppings/wash it once or twice a week? Or do most of you put shaving type material like shredded paper or recycled egg carton material?

 

[1095732]

I use fleece or newspaper. I personally wouldn't use felt. The little fibres would get caught on toenails and teeth probably. When I use fleece, I give them a lot of shredded newspaper other wise they destroy the fleece. They also get a box of aspen shavings to use as a dig box. I wash my fleece once a week, because they are all litter trained.

 

[yogarat]

Ok so fleece instead of felt. For litter training, what do you use in the litter box? I apologize if the question is odd, I'm new to ratties and still do not have any but looking to possibly adopt and am trying to learn more.

 

[amanda1472]

I use felt on the cage floors, and Boxo in the litter boxes, but you can use carefresh, kaytee etc. Just no wood bedding (Aspen is okay though).

 

[1095732]

Ok so fleece instead of felt. For litter training, what do you use in the litter box? I apologize if the question is odd, I'm new to ratties and still do not have any but looking to possibly adopt and am trying to learn more.

I don't use anything. I just have empty litter pans and I empty them daily. In the past I used Yesterday's News. It's a recycled newspaper cat litter. But I found it too hard to pick out the poops and ended up wasting a lot of litter. Mine do just fine without litter and it's a lot quicker to clean up

 

[dspch911]

We use fleeces on some, kaytee clean and kozy and/or carefresh white on others. For the liter boxes we use exquisicat paper - whatever you choose to use has to be paper in case they eat it.

 

[yogarat]

I've found someone selling a nice cage roomy enough for two rats on kijiji for $15. The bottom is plastic. Is this an issue at all for rats?
14 inches wide 25 inches long and 25 inches high. Two levels. I'll try to post the pic on here. I figured if its a good buy I'll grab it and keep it around even if I decide to wait with adopting two little fellows for now. Cages seem to be quite expensive and I'm more concerned with starting a rat vet fund for now lol. Please share your comments on this find.

 

[yogarat]

 

[amanda1472]

That's just a tad small. The base should be 18 X 30 inches. And of course, levels, which this one has. But this could be a good starter cage before moving on to a bigger/better one.

 

[Joanne]

I have this cage - it's actually bigger than it looks. I really hate the small door - it makes access to some of the cage difficult. I keep it as a spare although right now my two rescue boys are living in it. Can't go wrong for $15!
None of mine have tried chewing the plastic base because of the design. No edges to get their chompers into. LOL