Pet Rat Game: Playing with Food

Pet rats are super smart. Because of their high intelligence it’s especially important to provide them with activities that help stimulate their minds. Here’s a pet rat game I created that I think your rats will love as much as mine do.

Supplies Needed

Lab Blocks: Although I don’t like supporting the lab rat industry, Envigo—formerly Harlan—lab blocks work perfectly for this game. These blocks do provide the highest quality of nutrition for rats and they are the perfect size for this game. Sometimes my rats get extra clever and are able to carry TWO of these lab blocks in their mouth while running back to their cage. I only use these blocks for play, however, and prefer to feed my adult rats the Oxbow Essentials Adult Rat Diet. For more information on which particular Envigo lab blocks or rat diet is best for your rat, see Commercial Diets for Pet Rats.

Small cups: You can use anything from plastic water bottle caps to plastic shot glasses. Basically you can use any small cup-shaped object that can be easily overturned for this pet rat game.

Rat Proofed Room: For this game to work, it’s best to have their cage located inside their rat-proofed room. If their cage is not in their rat-proofed room, however, I’m sure they’ll figure out another way to make this game work.

Steps for this Pet Rat Game

1. Place lab blocks throughout your rat-proofed room. Allow your rats to find the blocks and bring them back to their cage. (As natural hoarders, they’ll instinctively bring the blocks back to their cage without having to be taught.)
2. After they’ve been hoarding the blocks for awhile, you can now place them so they’re only partially covered by whatever type(s) of cups you’ve chosen.
3. Now  that they’re used to taking the blocks from under the cups, they’re ready for you to fully cover the lab blocks with the upside-down facing cups. Your rats will have to actually overturn the cups to get the lab blocks. Wait ’til you see how much fun they have doing this!

Special Tips

• You can keep reusing and “recycling” their hoarded lab blocks while playing this pet rat game.
• After you and your rats are finished with the game, be sure and take out all of the extra lab blocks from their cage. (Otherwise you’ll end up with fat rats.)
• In order to get the blocks out of their cage, observe your rats closely while they’re hoarding the blocks. This is the only way to make sure you see exactly where to find the blocks when you’re ready to “recycle” or put away the blocks.

Here’s a video that shows step-by-step how to play this game with your rats: