Must-Have Rat Toys for a Happy and Enriched Life
Rats need a lot of enrichment to stay happy. Fortunately, there are many options. Knowing safe products from supervision only or dangerous toys makes choosing easier. Rats can use toys sold for birds, guinea pigs, and even chinchillas! Enrichment includes foraging toys, dig boxes, climbing ropes and nets, ramps, ladders, chews, hidden treats, and trick training.
Climbing Enrichment
The vast climbing toy choices make them a popular rat cage choice. The following are some safe options.
Ropes
Cotton, sisal, hemp, and other natural ropes which may be marketed for birds, dogs, or even sold for crafting purposes. Any rope needs regular inspection for fraying and loose ends, which could trap and entangle paws and tails, leading to severe injuries and disfigurement. A good quality rope is harmless. This also includes climbing nets and other rope based toys.
Ledges
Metal, plastic, and safe-wood ledges offer a fun way to explore. Make sure they are sturdy before leaving your rats with them unsupervised. Pumice ledges double as a climbing and chew toy. There are platforms big enough to hold hides. Sturdy perches for large birds are another fun climbing toy.
More Climbing Toys
Bridges, ladders, swings, and ramps are fun. There are bendy bridges, wooden ladders, ladders with chew toys hanging from them, and many other options.
Fall Breaks
It is important to include fall breaks when you have a tall cage and/or climbing toys. While they may have incredible balance, rats have died falling in cages without them. A fall break is a soft thing to stop your rat’s drop before they get hurt. This includes toys using horizontal cage space, like climbing nets and hammocks. Fall breaks are only effective in a place a rat can fall. A hammock at the cage’s ceiling does not count. If it is below another climbing object(s) a rat might fall from, it is an effective fall break.
Cage Enrichment
Dig Boxes
Your rat needs to dig as they do in the wild. You can make a dig box out of ice cream tubs with a hole in the lid, cardboard although it won’t last long, food containers, and other items. Filling options include coco choir, baked organic fertilizer free potting soil, bedding, and paper shreds or crinkle paper.
Foraging Toys
Foraging toys get your rat thinking by making food or treats challenging to get to. At first, this may seem mean, but rats and many other animals prefer working for their meal. This preference of challenge for food is called contra-freeloading. It is difficult to find foraging toys made for rats. However, rats enjoy foraging toys made for birds, dogs, rabbits, and cats. Catnip is toxic to rats, so avoid toys containing it.
There are many foraging toy designs of varying difficulty, so you can swap them out to prevent boredom. A good guideline is to switch foraging toys out every week during cage cleanings.
Hides And Lounging
Rats need a cozy place to sleep. The general recommendation is 1 hide per rat +1 extra. The hide should be a safe material. You need a rat sized hide with a large enough entrance and roomy interior.
Bad hides are transparent or a mix of wood and honey. Rats chew on wood or plastic but spit out because they know it is not food. Adding honey to the mix tricks them into eating it, causing intestinal blockages and death. Snak Shaks are one example of a wood and honey hide. While it claims to be made of alfalfa and honey, its top ingredient is pine shavings.
Snak Shak ingredients: pine wood shavings, cassava starch, fresh alfalfa, golden honey flavoring, and peanut butter flavoring.
Be wary of any hide claiming to be edible, which may contain wood, plastic, or other dangerous ingredients.
Sputniks, hammocks, Felix and Fido safe havens, chinchilla hides, large reptile hides, and Lixit igloos make good hides. Cardboard boxes are a favorite, but must be thrown out during cage cleanings.
Chew toys
Non-Edible
Edible
Rats can have milk bones free of red-40 and whimzee chews. Most edible dog chews are safe for rats. Bones are safe because rats grind them into a powder instead of splintering them.
Wheels
Not all rats use wheels, females are more likely to. A rat who grows up without a wheel might never use one. However, many rats love wheels. It is not required like other rodents, but your rats may appreciate it! Like other mammals, a rat’s tail is part of their spine and needs to be flat. Curling their tail up over their back when running in a wheel can cause back injury. The proper wheel size for a female is 14 inches (36 cm) and for males, 16 inches (41cm). Many people opt out of a wheel because at this size, their price range is $44 – $110 USD. Wood wheels may get chewed up, so metal wheels are better.
Scatter Feeding
Scatter feeding is the easiest and cheapest way to enrich your rat’s lives. Scatter the food in the cage instead of buying a food bowl. Searching for food makes feeding time funner for them, and more entertaining for you.
DIY Safe Materials
You can make your own toys from harmless materials. Paper towels, toilet paper, paper towel, and toilet paper rolls are safe. The rolls aren’t big enough for a rat to fit inside, so use them for bridges and foraging toys. PVC pipes and Pringles cans make fun tubes.
Free roam only
Many toys are supervision only. While bad for a cage, they are perfect for free roam. Anything you don’t want chewed up, dog puzzle/strategy games, and things too large for the cage are examples. Items nonfunctional in bedding or on platforms are good for play areas. Having enrichment items exclusive to outside the cage makes play time even funner.
Wobble and Treat Balls
These upright foraging toys with a round base are fun for rats to knock around and figure out. However, they don’t move around well in bedding and might fall off platforms. This makes them good for a free roam area’s flat surface. Treat balls have the same issue and solution as wobble balls.
Cat Teasers
You know those toys on a string? Rats love chasing them too! Laser lights are another choice, but watch for eye damage.
Pea Fishing Pools
Pea fishing pools are any watertight dish full of water and frozen or thawed peas. Rats will reach in and grab the peas. Make the container easy to exit and keep a towel nearby for splashes. For a bigger challenge, increase the depth over time until your rats are diving for peas! With deeper pools, they will need a ramp or thick rope to climb out and constant supervision.
Snuffle Mats
Snuffle mats are better in play areas to keep them clean longer.
Cat Towers
Cat towers are a rat favorite for extensive play areas. They enjoy climbing, resting, playing, and running around with their friends on them. Cat towers can get expensive or as cheap as $30USD.
Dangers
Don’t buy cedar because, unlike pine, kiln drying does not make it safe. Avoid toys containing toxic catnip. Check all wood toys for exposed nails and sharp edges. You can sand ragged edges down, but anything with exposed nails should not be used.
References
Frederick, M. J., & Cocuzzo, S. E. (2017). Contrafreeloading in Rats Is Adaptive and Flexible: Support for an Animal Model of Compulsive Checking. Evolutionary psychology : an international journal of evolutionary approaches to psychology and behavior, 15(4), 1474704917735937. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474704917735937
Inglis, I. R., Forkman, B., & Lazarus, J. (1996). Free food or earned food? A review and fuzzy model of contrafreeloading. Animal Behaviour, 51(3), 509-519. https://doi.org/10.1006/anbe.1996.0320
Santibáñez, R.Á., Montiel, J.C., & Hernández, P.M. (2010). Effects of free-food and continuous reinforcement schedule presentation on lever pressing for food by rats. Suma Psicológica, 17, 125-134. http://www.scielo.org.co/scielo.php?pid=S0121-43812010000200002&script=sci_arttext no known DOI
