Enrichment ideas for cages.

[breakthenight]

What ideas do you guys have/use in your cages for enrichment for your ratties? I have a really big cage, and a lot of room in it to fill it up with interesting objects, toys and puzzles for them to interact with. I think it is really important to offer a lot of different novel objects and activities to keep ("exotic" animals especially) busy and encourage them to use their brains and natural abilities like they would get to do in the wild. If you think of all the different behaviors and problems our rats wild ancestors would encounter over the course of a day...I think it's important to give pet rats a chance to use those natural abilities and desires...

That being said I have a hard time thinking up new things for the rats to do, and I like to switch things up often so they always have different activities and don't get bored. So I'd love suggestions...and I think it would be helpful and beneficial to everyone elses ratties to have a place to share these ideas.

I'll add a cheap and easy idea I've come up with that someone might want to use first:
I use a cat treat ball/ the balls meant to dispense dry food to cats that I bought at the dollar store. I fill it with different kinds of food and treats(frozen peas, chopped vegetables, broken lab blocks) and adjust the holes to the appropriate size. The rats have to roll around the ball to knock things out, or fish out the treats with their paws. It really keeps them busy and makes them think about how to get the food inside.

 

[Joanne]

Sometimes I will put stuff in a toilet paper tube and scrunch it up so they have to chew it open.

Someone else told me about putting a whole roll of toilet paper on a string or chain, so that they can unroll it. They love making a nest with that, and will drag it up levels. It looks like the cage was TP'd!

 

[eagle]

I plan to use a water bottle filled with treats for the new babies so similar to your treat ball.

 

[jorats]

You could hang newspaper or paper towels up high and let them work at bringing it in or down for nesting.
I've bought a couple of things at the pet store for birds, where there's chew stuff inside a box and the rat must chew the box open to get to the fun stuff inside.

 

[temblabamomo]

Paper towels. I line my FN with paper towels before covering that down with fleece, any rats feeling bored usually do their best to tear up the liners and get to the paper towels. They get shredded, used for nests, used to cover food, and stuffed into hammocks, and occasionally piled on top of sleeping rats.

 

[breakthenight]

Thanks guys! I forgot about the toilet paper tube treat trick, I used to do that with the boys! I like the idea of hanging up TP for them to get down and make nests. My guys don't seem terribly interested in moving stuff around now though, maybe because there are so many comfy spots without "adjustments"LOL.

I got ping pong balls for these babies as well, as some of my boys used to love them(Gaelan was bordering on obsession when it came to his ping pong balls), but they haven't taken an interest yet. After the balls would get a little chewed i'd hide a treat or so inside. Another thing I would like to do when I had a big mischief would be give them a whole hard boiled egg in the shell, and they LOVED trying to crack it and eat it, but with only two babies I think it might spoil before they broke in and could get it all eaten.

The suggestions are great, I'm planning on trying to get some more stuff set up tomorrow morning, please keep the ideas coming!