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QUESTION:
I’m looking for a little advice regarding my girls. Recently they’ve started stuffing their food bowl with cardboard they’ve stripped outta their playtubes, and with bedding. It’s a bit of a pain to clean it out every few hours. It’s a brand new behaviour. Help!
ABOUT PET RATS ANSWERS:
It sounds like they’re trying to protect their food by “hiding” it. As long as they’re still able to eat their food without eating the cardboard bits and the bedding AND as long as they’re not contaminating their food with urine or feces, this isn’t as big of a problem as it seems. You can just clean out the food dish at the end of each day and think of it as a new activity that keeps them busy and probably makes them happy too.
However, if they’re eating the cardboard and bedding along with their food and/or if there’s urine or feces in their food dish, here are some options for you:
Easy ideas:
- The most simple solution would be to move their food away from their bedding and cardboard tubes. If their cage has more than one floor, place their food on an entirely different level completely away from any cardboard or bedding.
- Assuming this is dry food (such as kibble or lab blocks) in their dish, you could also hide individual pieces of food throughout their cage. This would give them a new game, a little exercise and eliminate the need for a food dish.
Other ideas:
- Place strips of plain newsprint or soft t-shirt material near their food so they can use those items to cover up their food rather than something that makes a mess. You could even teach them to use these new objects by placing a few pieces of newsprint or t-shirt fabric over their food yourself.
- If you’re home and around your rats most of the time, you could try training them. They can definitely learn that it’s not okay to place the cardboard and their bedding in their food dish as long as you’re there to redirect their behavior. If you see them start to do the undesirable behavior you can give them a verbal warning (I like to use the word “careful” and I say it in a lower voice so they know it’s not a happy voice.) Once they learn that the word you’ve chosen is a warning, you’ll be able to use it in other situations as well. When they start to drag the pieces of cardboard and bedding over to their food, you can physically steer your rats toward the area where you’d prefer they place their “building materials”. After enough repetition they will learn the new behavior. This takes a lot of practice but it’s well worth it if you have the time.
I hope you find at least some of these answers helpful. Let me know if you have any other questions or need any clarification. Feel free to keep me posted on what you try and how well it works for you and your rats.
I already place the food dish in the top tier of the cage, every other day I make sure they still have food in the dish because it’s totally covered, I remove all the paper bedding and put it back down in the bottom, by the next day it’s back up covering the dish again. When I fill the bowl or take it out to clean the cage I do see some pebbles of fecies but I think it just gets there from them moving their bedding up into it. I don’t think they are eating it though. They are able to get to the food although I don’t know how with all the stuff on top. Whenever they get treats like Cheerios or carrots ect ect they take a few up there and bury it before they start eating some. The fluffy bedding stuff that comes in the tubes ends up in their bowel as well.
Hi Lynn,
Thanks for your excellent question. Have you tried the first suggestion listed under “Other ideas” in the above post? Supplying them with plain shredded newsprint and/or small pieces of fleece near their food dish will entice them to use something other than their bedding with bits of feces mixed in.
It’s actually normal for rats to cover their food up. They’re just trying to protect it so it won’t get stolen. 😊 Besides, it gives them something to do. Similar to most humans, rats love being productive.
So, it’s okay if you need to uncover their food dish on a daily basis. Just divert their behavior so there’s no longer any feces getting in there. Also, make sure to give them a fresh supply of food each day. (You’re probably already doing this.) I like to try to give them just enough food for the day so that, when it’s time to refill it, their dish is almost (if not completely) empty.
I hope my response is helpful. Let me know if you need any clarification or have any additional questions.
Best Wishes to You & Your Rats,
Jasmine | About Pet Rats
One of my girls does that too- covers the food dish with pieces of cardboard or paper. Since she’s the dominant one I think she’s claiming the food dish as hers lol.
Their personalities are so much fun….you never know what you’ll see next. That’s great to hear that one of your girls covers their food dish with cardboard or paper. Pet rats certainly are both resourceful and ingenious, aren’t they?! I sometimes observe they also have a sense of humor. So amazing considering their small size!