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Had a chew out!!

Allalaskan

Allalaskan

The Crazy Alaskan
Well, went out to do my daily check of my rats and found that one of my female rats had chewed out of her plastic tub in her rack, grrrr. lucky for me the other female and male were still in there but now im afraid I have a pregnant female rat running loose in my house (wife doesnt know yet) so I have set a live trap in hopes of catching her. For now I put the other female and male into a 29 gallon tank with a lid to keep them in. Looks like this little colony is going to have to come out of the rack and stay in a glass tank (supposing I am able to trap the female) from now on.

I am using bread on the live trap, was planning on covering it in peanut butter but just found out im out, any other good things to use for bait for catching a rat?
 
O This is the second of 3 females to "be gone" since I last my last breeding female in the "WTF, buck ate my doe" Thread, which leaves me now with only 1 female and 3 males ( all males in separate cages), soooo im kinda lop sided on my numbers here lol.
 
You can put the males together. They'll bicker a bit but should be fine. Should be.


How the heck did she chew out? Can you get photos? I've had my rats chew a bit at parts of their bin, but that was only when I needed to glue the screen back on.
 
well the camera is in the car, and my wife has the car at work so I cant get pics till tomorrow.

On a happy note though, she came back and was on top of one of the other bins eating rat food lol, and when I went to grab her she tried to escape but trapped herself and I was able to catch her. So I got her back, how ever still doesnt mean she can go into the tub but at least shes not running loose any more.
 
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This is the other side which is the way it looked before..

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Maybe there was a small defect in the tub that she found? Smart little critters they are. I hope you find her!
 
O I found her, she was trying to eat the rat food on one of the other rat racks and when I went to grab her she jumped and ended up accidently trapping her self between the rack and the wall so I was able to grab her. She and the other 2 rats are now in a 29 gallon glass tank for now..

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The glass looks dirty but its not, there was a little bit of water left from when I cleaned it and the bedding stuck to is when I put them in.
 
I agree that it was probably a defect. I'd try to fix that hole, personally. No sense throwing out an otherwise good tub.

I would also offer some bones to chew on, like rib, chicken, or steak bones. My rats chew at their bin a bit if they're bored and don't have something tasty to chew on.
 
I have extra plastic from burning out ventilation holes in my bins, so I could cut or solder a piece of plastic to the hole. *shrug*
 
Never bred rats, but from what I hear; once you have a chewer, feed it off. It will teach the others to chew as well.
 
well, I will be suprised if she can chew through glass lol.They actually have more room in the 29 gal then they did in the tubs and I think im just going to leave those 3 in that glass tank.
 
any bend in plastic is a possible starting point for them to chew through. Had the plastic been totally flush she probably couldn't do that. Best bet is to always have mesh that sits completely inside the plastic so that if they are always secured by the mesh itself.
 
I kept a few hamsters when I was a kid and they always chewed the plastic edges of their cages. My dad told me rats could chew through steel wool so plastic would be nothing.
 
I used to keep my breeder colony in plastic bins until I had a major chew-out!! One of the babies in a brooder tub managed to chew out around the water nib and 3 babies escaped.

Now I keep the breeding colony in a really big bunny/guinea pig cage, the brood cages are made from 1/4" x 1/4" wire mesh with solid bottoms. I have had zero escapes since I switched to this caging system.

(ps- you have to raise any baby rats you are going to keep up to almost adult size in the brood pens before putting them in the rabbit cage or they could fit between the bars.)
 
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