Our Cages

Since we first started investigating rats as pets we have developed the opinion that the majority of commercial cages are perhaps not the perfect habitat for an eager ratty. We scoured the internet for ideas and came across a number of great sites regarding building your own cages. (will put refs in here when located again!) This inspired us to create our own. This page will show the cages we have already built, in later cases with detailled photos of how we did it.

We have put here an opinion on the different materials we've used during cage building hoping that it will help others when choosing what to use when building their own cages! :)

Our first cage

This was the first cage we built. We were looking for a ready made frame which we could add levels to and mesh over.

We found an indoor greenhouse frame which was made of metal posts with plastic cross pieces. It made a very sturdy frame indeed.

For the levels we chose melamine board from which we cut out ramps. We had to iron plastic tape around the edge of the board to seal it together which was tricky, but very effective. The ramps were fixed with small hinges so that in theory they would fold up into the level above. Unfortunately we didn't account for the width of the tape around the edges so they didn't fit back in but they moved enough to facilitate easy cleaning! :) We wrapped the mesh around the frame and secured it using staples and hose clips although we've found garden wire in DIY centres would do a better job! :)

This cage was at the time a work of love - all our flatmates pitched in to help us finish it off (or were playing with Jadz and Ez whilst we finished it off!!) We thought it was amazing at the time and gave them loooooads of space but in hindsight there were a number of disadvantages to it.

1. It was hard to clean - we couldn't get our arms in that far and ended up getting scratched a lot.
2. The ratties were able to hide in areas that we just couldn't reach and so wouldn't be good for a nervous rat
3. The amount of space given to our first two rats was perhaps too much - it took them longer to settle in than we now know is normal. In our opinion, making a small portion of the cage available to start off with would have built their confidence and could have gradually expanded their space as their confidence grew.
4. Open cages let poo fly out onto the walls - thank goodness our lounge walls were washable otherwise we'd have been in trouble with our landlords at the time!!

Cage II

This was our second attempt. It was meant to be easier to clean and give more room for climbing. It was originally our kitten cage and we noted that as it encouraged climbing, the development of kittens in it was rapid and great! :)

Again we used melamine for the base and shelves but used a wooden frame. This worked really well for a long time (it was our longest lived cage) although we found it to be a bit too heavy. Eventually one bright kitten had the idea to gnaw on the frame (pretty good going really) but it is really solid and it stood the test of time.

Overall however, the shelves did not actually give much in the way of additional floor space (even though they loved perching on them - esp when the boys holiday'd in it!!!) and the fact that it had mesh sides meant that poo was still being flung everywhere - more than ever in this one for some strange reason!!

Cage III

This cage was intended to be light(er), modular, space for climbing and hanging activities and above all, easy to clean!! Initially for bucks, we found it to be more than suitable for our girls as well.

There are three great things about this cage;
1. was the amount of extra space that it gave them.
2. was the fact that we'd used a hutch/cupboard design meant that poo flinging was restricted to the front of the cage which meant that the whole rat area was much easier to keep clean as we didn't have to venture round the back of the cage to clean up.
3. was the ability to get right into the cage to clean it out - easy access reduced the time taken to clean out and let us be more thorough (it's amazing how your perspective on "clean" changes when you can get your head right into something!!)

Downsides to this one were that we'd kept to the balcony style levels which were great as runs, but did little for increasing overall usable space in the cage. Also, the structure was exposed on the inside which led to it being gnawed to within an inch of it's life!! Amazingly however it stood up to more destruction than the plastic based cages we've had so that's got to be a positive!! The central front strut was a pain in the arse because you had to reach around it when cleaning out.

The cupboard style leant itself to having a little cuboard underneath - this has been v v useful and keeps the rat room much more tidy. A definate positive feature.

Cage IV

This was intentionally a doe's cage. It built upon all the features of CageIII, light(er), space for climbing and hanging activities and above all being easy to clean. Although it has no real modular potential, we didn't really think it needed it - we certainly never took that idea any further with Cage III.

The larger levels in this design worked far better than the balcony style - they were able to use them as runs and for generally bounding around on. Additional hung material levels can be put in to increase the usable space. The climbing pole was an interesting idea - whilst it was certainly used, it ended up being stinky so we took it out. They didn't seem to miss it!! The open style still worked well when it came to cleaning out - this was the quickest cage to clean so far. The only drawback was that there was a strut along the front where the door was that stopped stuff falling out - this proved to be a pain to clean into the corners and get stuff out.

Cage V (I & II)

This was really a refactoring of the Cage III design. We built two to stand on top of each other and on top of the original cuboard as the Cage III had been before it.
1. Instead of balcony shelves we used 1/3 width shelves - these gave them that much more usable space to play with. They've always been chewed but we designed them to be replaceable so there is no big loss there. We've not actually done that yet though.
2. Instead of the pine frame + 3mm melamine coated hardboard, we opted for pre-cut 15mm melamine boards. These are the massive heavy ones that we used in Cage II for the base. We decided that at the time we were hard pushed for the space/time to build the units with the previous design, and as we weren't students anymore and wouldn't be moving about so much, them being heavy wouldn't be a problem!!
3. We took out the centre front support - the change in design left it sturdy enough to be without it - a definate improvement in accessibilty!!
4. We designed the doors to come all the way down to the cage floor so as to provide no lip to the front - this let us sweep bedding straight out and made cleaning easier!! The downside was that every time we opened the doors, stuff fell out!! See the MkII design below for how we overcame this.

Cage VI (aka Cage IV MkII)
This was a refactoring of Cage IV. In fact, as the shell was still in-tact and sound, we kept it and refurbished the rest of the cage.
1. The middle shelf was taken out and replaced with two shelves, splitting the cage into three rather than two. We felt that the extra space wasn't used and that more rats would benefit from the new design. We keep ours in groups of 3-6 girls so they were certainly never cramped in this new design.
2. We added a barn door to each of the three cage sections. This consisted of a detachable plank of wood slotted at the bottom front of each section. The doors were shortened so that they closed flush with these sections. This enabled us to open the doors without bedding falling out, whilst giving us the ability to remove the section and sweep the last dregs out of the cage when cleaning. This has been our most invaluable addition!