I really feel for folks who have to get your parents permission to better the lives of your fur babies. Good job Shadow for doing what you needed to do to give your rats the home you knew they deserved. Sounds like it took some doing, but your parents finally came around to letting you have your independence regarding the rats. And also kudos on all the creativity and ingenuity when making all your cages into one large cage!
It's been a great adventure seeing all the cages and it shows that sometimes you just gotta work with what you have. You are such a great rat mom and it shows with how great your rats have been.
Also, I love this. I have been on a similar journey in the last two year, starting with a DIY bin cage which I expanded to a tri-level bin cage, before finally upgrading to the good ol' DCN, which its self has expanded.
I enjoyed this very much and remember your older cages. I’m sooo happy your parents are fine with your triple critter nation now. 😀 If you ever need another one I’d be glad to donate my double critter nation to you I used for my 4 ratties when they were alive. (Miss them so much, but am just caring for my 9 chinnies for now in ferret nation and chinchilla mansion cages). Your 7 ratties are so lucky to have you! ❤️
Those are some crazy stories and it's really impressive how inventive you were with making all the different cages work together. Super cool :D My mom would have never put up with all of that. Last year I redid my rabbit enclosure (only once!) and she was already annoyed.
Loved your video. I think we all kind of have a similar story as in starting smaller then having to expand. I learnt and am still learning. In fact watching your videos teaches me heaps.
Hey I just wanted to thank you for the idea of baby food for my rat. She was scared of everything now with a bit of canned chicken and beef flavored baby food she is starting to come to me.
My boys are gonna be so spoiled when I get them, honestly. I’m getting 4 Male rats and my friend has the same cage as me. The thing is, she has 13 rats. Yes. 13 rats for in it and still have plenty of room to run around and stuff I’m getting 4
I have a few questions. Where did you get the deep metal pans that are in the bottom of the cage and also on a few other levels? And how do you have such a clean cage? We have two boy rats and they go potty wherever they feel like. Thanks! Loved seeing the progression of cages.
The metal pans are from the website bass equipment. As for the clean cage the trick is to just film before the rats destroy it lol, especially if I'm using something like tissue paper which they love to tear down! Otherwise minimizing fabric and using a good bit of bedding has helped the most in keeping it clean - the more bedding pans they have available the more likely they will use them (I find rats are pretty good about returning to the cage when out to go potty in the pans, but if they are asleep in the cage and litter is a few stories down they aren't going to walk all the way down/up to go. On the other hand if they have a pan right next to them and just have to hop out of their hide to go they will do so, so that's one nice thing about having a few larger pans with bedding.)
How do they get to the wheel though, and when you open your door, what are those things used for that come out with the door-on the inside of the door and what are you saying- hardwood board?
Hey!!! I have to ratties rn and we have an all living things rat cage! Buttt I almost have my parents convinced to get cn!! I will update u!! Btw love ur vids!
You sound super super super super super mature for 20 years old! I'm 22 and still ain't growed up yet! Smoken anda drinkin, and messing around with cars. I really like you. You sound very adorable
Hi, I wanted to ask you if one critter nation cage, not the double, would be big enough for two female rats? I'm getting my rats next weekend but I'm not sure if this one cage is big enough. Will you please help me?
People have various opinions on bedding, but my top one would be pelleted beddings like yesterdays news (what I use). I find it to be great at odor control and urine absorption, and much better than any purely paper bedding. Another good option is hemp bedding, or kiln-dried pine - these have a bit more of a "wood" smell, but otherwise are a great price and both safe for rats and good at odor control. Mainly I'd avoid using anything pure paper (so avoid clean and cozy and similar beddings - these work okay for dig boxes but are terrible for odor control), and avoid using too much fabric (fleece will always need more maintenance, even with the best underpads).
The larger your cage and the fewer rats you have in it, the less it smells and the longer it goes between cleaning. Really with my larger cage it takes less work to keep it fresh and odor-free than when I had the smaller cages. On top of that having the cage in a large room with ventilation in the forms of central air and windows helps a ton - the more air changes the room gets, the less it will smell even with a small cage. Plus using a good bedding and food help a lot - I started with a pretty poor bedding and an okay food, but once I found my current bedding and food then the smell reduced a ton. Some beddings (namely pure paper beddings) just don't absorb much liquid and have no odor neutralizing properties - other beddings are very absorbant and neutralize odor really well, and this makes all the difference. Similarly a good food will be easily processed by rats and cause less odor when they potty, while a poor food and especially one too high in fat or protein will cause their poop and pee to smell a LOT more.
To be fair, the critter nation wheels aren't that great, either. I find that when I have my DCN cage on the base with wheels and push it at all on carpet, the base ends up coming loose and getting wobbly on me from the resistance.
I really want to get a double critter nation for my ratties except I can't afford one. I'm still trying to find one though!!! I also really enjoyed your video.
My rats live in our finished basement, and so it only took pushing the sofabed back a few inches to fit the second lengthwise unit. Then adding the top cage just took unused vertical space. Plenty of people have cages this large in much smaller rooms though - if you don't mind sharing with your pets then it doesn't feel like a sacrifice to have their cage taking half your space. As for the plastic items they can get chewed, although rats aren't often into chewing in my experienced. They will chew on occasion, but even when they do they never ingest the item unless it smells like food (which plastic doesn't). If a plastic item gets too chewed, you can replace it pretty easily, but so far I've yet to have an item destroyed that much and that's with 6+ years of caring for 30+ rats. The nice thing about plastic is that its easy to wipe down and clean, which makes it a lot nicer than wood or fabric which just soak in pee and are difficult to clean.
Did your parents fall in love with the rats too? :) Sounds like they might have if they decided to let you have the huge cage! haha. I know my husband was really not too happy when I told him how big the cage I wanted was but he's fallen in love with the rats and I think he's just happy that they're so happy in their huge mansion. :3 (I also have a double CN. Well, it's a savic royal suite but same thing essentially). Anyway, I was always really curious why you had so many different cages/set ups, haha. This video answers many questions. :p
How do you handle rat care while you’re on vacation? Would it be okay to leave a pair of rats alone for 5 days or so, in the event that there is no one willing or wanting to check in on the rats? And one more question, how do you feel about rats sleeping in an older child’s room?
I'd say anything over a weekend would require them to be watched or at least checked up on. I personally hire a pet sitting service and they come in every other day to change water, refill food, and socialize a bit with the rats, and when needed they will even give medicine and do other activities with them. As for rats sleeping in a kids room the only issue is that rats can be loud. Rats are naturally most active at dawn and dusk, and while they adapt to our schedules pretty well they can still be noisy. So you can try it out, making sure to free-range them before bed so they are tired and hopefully sleep at the same time as you, but they still might be too noisy so you might want to have a backup place to put them.
I have the same cage as you and my rats enjoy it also! I have the double Critter Nation. Except we took the bottom out to fit the litter tray in. They really like the size of it.
I agree with everything EXCEPT the fact that all the cages you told the capacity of rats they can hold was WAY to high, I have a 2 story ferret nation cage and it can only hold 5 rats, I feel that it can hold 10, but they won’t be able to run around and do zoomies :)
Those are just the max numbers going by the 2 cubic feet per rat rule. As you can see I prefer less rats than the max because I like giving them ample space (having had 12 rats in a DCN Ill never do that again unless it’s an emergency - felt super cramped and it was a relief to upgrade to a TCN 2 weeks later. Now with 7 in the TCN it also feels great and I’m glad they have the space). But yeah, just going by pet standards. Lab standards are 0.5-1 cubic foot per rat, pet standards are 1.5-2 cubic feet per rat (or 2.5 if you want to be a bit more generous). A DCN has 24 cubic feet of space, hence the max for 2 cubic feet being 12 rats. If you go by the 2.5 cubic feet rule it’s 9.6 rats or rounded 10 rats - but even then if possible I’d max it at 8 for more comfort. I also like the longer cage rather than taller cage for more floorspace - more personal preference here however I’ve found my rats seem to enjoy the floorspace quite a bit. Again like with space it’s a personal preference, but I think they have a pretty good deal going on lol
Shadow The Rat yeah I see where your coming from I was just surprised by the amount they CAN hold though I know you wouldn’t put a ton of rats in one cage, it just caught me off guard considering I only have 3 rats in a Feisty Ferret cage, at most I would only hold 6 rats in that cage because they’re already full grown and dang do rats get huge lol
I'm trying to do a lot of research before getting rats and usually I hear that rats like to climb and they like higher places, so a bin cage if not huge and tall might not be the best after all. Maybe if it's made of two bins on each other? Still it's harder to attach toys and platforms to it without bars and harder to ventilate well. (A nice wide bin cage is great for a hamster though.)
Well, not really in my opinion, it has decent floor space but rats need vertical space as well. Unless you stack multiple bin cages together + ventilate it on all sizes it’s not a very nice cage 😅
All but the 20 gallon were perfectly suited for rats and over the minimum. And the 20 gallon was only used due to dire circumstances and for a short time period. I highly doubt my 6 foot long and 4 foot height cage is too small for rats lol.
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My baby Blue has a pituitary tumour right now, your videos have helped massively. Thank you so much for your content, never stop.
Oooo yay! That’s a lot of rat cages!
I really feel for folks who have to get your parents permission to better the lives of your fur babies. Good job Shadow for doing what you needed to do to give your rats the home you knew they deserved. Sounds like it took some doing, but your parents finally came around to letting you have your independence regarding the rats. And also kudos on all the creativity and ingenuity when making all your cages into one large cage!
those cages look well designed
I enjoyed this, too. The story surrounding each cage was fun to hear
Thats awesome! Im so sorry about the house fire.
It's been a great adventure seeing all the cages and it shows that sometimes you just gotta work with what you have. You are such a great rat mom and it shows with how great your rats have been.
Also, I love this. I have been on a similar journey in the last two year, starting with a DIY bin cage which I expanded to a tri-level bin cage, before finally upgrading to the good ol' DCN, which its self has expanded.
i got rats about a month and a half ago and your channel has really helped me out thank you
I love hearing your journey through cages!!
I absolutely love this! Your cages are always exceptional
This is such a fun journey of problem solving and creativity and adorable ratties!
Her - "This may be one of the longest videos I have every made"
Rat trick video 2 hours - "you were saying?"
You're so creative with the way you made the cages work, wow!!
I enjoyed this very much and remember your older cages. I’m sooo happy your parents are fine with your triple critter nation now. 😀
If you ever need another one I’d be glad to donate my double critter nation to you I used for my 4 ratties when they were alive. (Miss them so much, but am just caring for my 9 chinnies for now in ferret nation and chinchilla mansion cages).
Your 7 ratties are so lucky to have you! ❤️
suzypenguin wait where do you live? Because if you live in the same country as her I can pass on the message.
That's super generous of you!
HowlingWolf yes, I’m also in the US. 🙂
Bonnie S It’s my pleasure. She is such an amazing ambassador for setting a great example for rat moms and dads everywhere. 😀
@@suzypenguin I agree. I learned almost everything I needed to know from her when my daughter first got rats.
Those are some crazy stories and it's really impressive how inventive you were with making all the different cages work together. Super cool :D
My mom would have never put up with all of that. Last year I redid my rabbit enclosure (only once!) and she was already annoyed.
Great video. Your videos are always so nice. One can feel right at home with you and the babies, we love you and them too. 🥰
Loved your video. I think we all kind of have a similar story as in starting smaller then having to expand. I learnt and am still learning. In fact watching your videos teaches me heaps.
your fr the best! i learned everything from you! im getting my 5 baby tomorrow! cant wait!!!
Hey I just wanted to thank you for the idea of baby food for my rat. She was scared of everything now with a bit of canned chicken and beef flavored baby food she is starting to come to me.
I love u shadow I’m thinking of getting some rats for My bday tii
My boys are gonna be so spoiled when I get them, honestly.
I’m getting 4 Male rats and my friend has the same cage as me.
The thing is, she has 13 rats.
Yes.
13 rats for in it and still have plenty of room to run around and stuff
I’m getting 4
I feel that! I have a DCN for 3 very spoiled girls!
Whatis the name of the cage? And how are your boys doing? Do they mark their teritory a lot?
I love these types of videos!!!! Please show more of these!!
That's a lot of cages 😱🙈
Our first cage was similar to your first cage, and went through exactly the same thing with the WHEEL!!!!!!!
How many rats have you had in your life? There are so many cages!
18 so far! Kinda crazy considering it’s only been 5 years!
I have a few questions. Where did you get the deep metal pans that are in the bottom of the cage and also on a few other levels? And how do you have such a clean cage? We have two boy rats and they go potty wherever they feel like. Thanks! Loved seeing the progression of cages.
The metal pans are from the website bass equipment. As for the clean cage the trick is to just film before the rats destroy it lol, especially if I'm using something like tissue paper which they love to tear down! Otherwise minimizing fabric and using a good bit of bedding has helped the most in keeping it clean - the more bedding pans they have available the more likely they will use them (I find rats are pretty good about returning to the cage when out to go potty in the pans, but if they are asleep in the cage and litter is a few stories down they aren't going to walk all the way down/up to go. On the other hand if they have a pan right next to them and just have to hop out of their hide to go they will do so, so that's one nice thing about having a few larger pans with bedding.)
@@ShadowTheRat thank you for the web site info. and very good point about having more pans with bedding.
How do they get to the wheel though, and when you open your door, what are those things used for that come out with the door-on the inside of the door and what are you saying- hardwood board?
I have an all living things cage like that. I have had nothing but trouble with it too. Saving up for CN cages.
Hey!!! I have to ratties rn and we have an all living things rat cage! Buttt I almost have my parents convinced to get cn!! I will update u!! Btw love ur vids!
Lmfao, when I get my rats I'm just gonna get the critter nation first, I'm so happy I have the internet.
how many rats (and other pets) have you had in your life?
I have 2 cats both tame and nice with other animals as long as I kept the rats decently away do you think it would be fine having rats?
Wow where did you stored all that XD
I know that is a screen to go over the bars that have too much spacing, but how do you pronounce it? And what are those clips called?
Great video loved it
You sound super super super super super mature for 20 years old! I'm 22 and still ain't growed up yet! Smoken anda drinkin, and messing around with cars. I really like you. You sound very adorable
Hi, I wanted to ask you if one critter nation cage, not the double, would be big enough for two female rats? I'm getting my rats next weekend but I'm not sure if this one cage is big enough. Will you please help me?
Definitely! It’s a great day for up to 4-5 rats, and many will max it even higher (although from personal experience I’d max it at 5 if not 4).!
What is the best bedding to use for my rats. Have tried many types.
People have various opinions on bedding, but my top one would be pelleted beddings like yesterdays news (what I use). I find it to be great at odor control and urine absorption, and much better than any purely paper bedding.
Another good option is hemp bedding, or kiln-dried pine - these have a bit more of a "wood" smell, but otherwise are a great price and both safe for rats and good at odor control.
Mainly I'd avoid using anything pure paper (so avoid clean and cozy and similar beddings - these work okay for dig boxes but are terrible for odor control), and avoid using too much fabric (fleece will always need more maintenance, even with the best underpads).
How do you keep up with the stinkies??😦
The larger your cage and the fewer rats you have in it, the less it smells and the longer it goes between cleaning. Really with my larger cage it takes less work to keep it fresh and odor-free than when I had the smaller cages. On top of that having the cage in a large room with ventilation in the forms of central air and windows helps a ton - the more air changes the room gets, the less it will smell even with a small cage.
Plus using a good bedding and food help a lot - I started with a pretty poor bedding and an okay food, but once I found my current bedding and food then the smell reduced a ton. Some beddings (namely pure paper beddings) just don't absorb much liquid and have no odor neutralizing properties - other beddings are very absorbant and neutralize odor really well, and this makes all the difference. Similarly a good food will be easily processed by rats and cause less odor when they potty, while a poor food and especially one too high in fat or protein will cause their poop and pee to smell a LOT more.
To be fair, the critter nation wheels aren't that great, either. I find that when I have my DCN cage on the base with wheels and push it at all on carpet, the base ends up coming loose and getting wobbly on me from the resistance.
I really want to get a double critter nation for my ratties except I can't afford one. I'm still trying to find one though!!! I also really enjoyed your video.
Get a large coco cage. It comes back in store on the 28th. Its huge it can fit 5 fully grown rats permanently
What is a triple critter nation?
3 single critter nations put together
HOW do you find enough ROOM to set up such a LARGE cage?😮
And does'nt the plastic items get chewed on?
My rats live in our finished basement, and so it only took pushing the sofabed back a few inches to fit the second lengthwise unit. Then adding the top cage just took unused vertical space. Plenty of people have cages this large in much smaller rooms though - if you don't mind sharing with your pets then it doesn't feel like a sacrifice to have their cage taking half your space.
As for the plastic items they can get chewed, although rats aren't often into chewing in my experienced. They will chew on occasion, but even when they do they never ingest the item unless it smells like food (which plastic doesn't). If a plastic item gets too chewed, you can replace it pretty easily, but so far I've yet to have an item destroyed that much and that's with 6+ years of caring for 30+ rats. The nice thing about plastic is that its easy to wipe down and clean, which makes it a lot nicer than wood or fabric which just soak in pee and are difficult to clean.
Did your parents fall in love with the rats too? :) Sounds like they might have if they decided to let you have the huge cage! haha. I know my husband was really not too happy when I told him how big the cage I wanted was but he's fallen in love with the rats and I think he's just happy that they're so happy in their huge mansion. :3 (I also have a double CN. Well, it's a savic royal suite but same thing essentially).
Anyway, I was always really curious why you had so many different cages/set ups, haha. This video answers many questions. :p
What treats do you use to reward your rats when your training? I want to train mine but don’t know what treats to give him.
I use cheerio and gerber puffs broken into 2-4 pieces each for the dry treats and plain yogurt or occasionally meat baby food for the wet treats.
How do you handle rat care while you’re on vacation? Would it be okay to leave a pair of rats alone for 5 days or so, in the event that there is no one willing or wanting to check in on the rats? And one more question, how do you feel about rats sleeping in an older child’s room?
I'd say anything over a weekend would require them to be watched or at least checked up on. I personally hire a pet sitting service and they come in every other day to change water, refill food, and socialize a bit with the rats, and when needed they will even give medicine and do other activities with them.
As for rats sleeping in a kids room the only issue is that rats can be loud. Rats are naturally most active at dawn and dusk, and while they adapt to our schedules pretty well they can still be noisy. So you can try it out, making sure to free-range them before bed so they are tired and hopefully sleep at the same time as you, but they still might be too noisy so you might want to have a backup place to put them.
Shadow The Rat thank you for the reply.
you rock!
Wait...did you say "small animal teacher"?
Yeah...why? She taught about small animals and had a small animal classroom - easily my favorite class in high school and super informative and fun.
@@ShadowTheRat That is so neat! Definitely not a program like anything I had in highschool.
What's your favorite cage?
My current one - I love the space and ease of cleaning and the rats seem to really enjoy it’
I have the same cage as you and my rats enjoy it also! I have the double Critter Nation. Except we took the bottom out to fit the litter tray in. They really like the size of it.
wow!!!
I agree with everything EXCEPT the fact that all the cages you told the capacity of rats they can hold was WAY to high, I have a 2 story ferret nation cage and it can only hold 5 rats, I feel that it can hold 10, but they won’t be able to run around and do zoomies :)
Those are just the max numbers going by the 2 cubic feet per rat rule. As you can see I prefer less rats than the max because I like giving them ample space (having had 12 rats in a DCN Ill never do that again unless it’s an emergency - felt super cramped and it was a relief to upgrade to a TCN 2 weeks later. Now with 7 in the TCN it also feels great and I’m glad they have the space).
But yeah, just going by pet standards. Lab standards are 0.5-1 cubic foot per rat, pet standards are 1.5-2 cubic feet per rat (or 2.5 if you want to be a bit more generous). A DCN has 24 cubic feet of space, hence the max for 2 cubic feet being 12 rats. If you go by the 2.5 cubic feet rule it’s 9.6 rats or rounded 10 rats - but even then if possible I’d max it at 8 for more comfort.
I also like the longer cage rather than taller cage for more floorspace - more personal preference here however I’ve found my rats seem to enjoy the floorspace quite a bit. Again like with space it’s a personal preference, but I think they have a pretty good deal going on lol
Shadow The Rat yeah I see where your coming from I was just surprised by the amount they CAN hold though I know you wouldn’t put a ton of rats in one cage, it just caught me off guard considering I only have 3 rats in a Feisty Ferret cage, at most I would only hold 6 rats in that cage because they’re already full grown and dang do rats get huge lol
And by that cage I mean the cage that I own
🙄😳😍👍
Are you a grown-up if you are that’s amazing I guess
Barbara Story Shes in high-school or college rn
First
Lunox Senpai that’s awesome
Noice
K
I say bin cages are fine for rats if there big and well ventilated (:
I'm trying to do a lot of research before getting rats and usually I hear that rats like to climb and they like higher places, so a bin cage if not huge and tall might not be the best after all. Maybe if it's made of two bins on each other? Still it's harder to attach toys and platforms to it without bars and harder to ventilate well. (A nice wide bin cage is great for a hamster though.)
Well, not really in my opinion, it has decent floor space but rats need vertical space as well. Unless you stack multiple bin cages together + ventilate it on all sizes it’s not a very nice cage 😅
hagin is my last name
none of these cages is really animal-friendly or corresponds to the minimum...
All but the 20 gallon were perfectly suited for rats and over the minimum. And the 20 gallon was only used due to dire circumstances and for a short time period.
I highly doubt my 6 foot long and 4 foot height cage is too small for rats lol.
What- are you serious- I bet you never had rats lol 😂