Rat Owners: Who Has Rat Rooms?

Our sit down meals are held in the room between the kitchen and family-room, so the dining-room has become a rat-room by default as it is pretty much useless; just a place to store the dining-room table and buffet. The room itself is average according to human standards, but huge according to rat standards. The cage is set against an inside wall with the rodent paraphernalia beside it such as food, bedding, toys and so forth. Cardboard boxes like those from 12 packs of pop are great for making mazes for the rats. The room has been rat-proofed with all human stuff placed well out of reach and no electrical cords hanging. We do have to block off 2 doorways since we live in a center hall type home, but storage bins serve well to prevent escapes. Of course, the rats are never unattended, but rats are extremely clever critters so never underestimate the power of a rat to break out of an area. It took a lot of trial and error with the rats to secure the doorways before we finally hit upon escape-free blockades.

As far as actual free range time, if you are litter training your rats it is a good idea to put a litter tray out during playtime. If you are not litter training, it might be a good idea to put an old sheet down on the floor to catch any accidents.

RattyRat is a great rat site that has information on choosing a play area as well as rat-proofing it. Scroll down on the left hand side of the following link to the pages titled, "Finding a Play Area for Your Rats" and "Rat-Proofing Your Play Area":

http://www.rattyrat.com/guidebook/guidebook_index....

DapperRat and RatSauce might be useful as they have ideas on toys to make and games to play during free range time. Links follow:

http://www.dapper.com.au/toys.htm

http://www.ratsauce.com/rat-toys-and-games

I am also adding a link to an article from the AFRMA about hay that I ran across. It offers additional opinions on using (non-Alfalfa) hay for rats/mice. I stress these are just opinions like the answers you received, but thought they might be of interest to you since they are not about using hay as bedding, but rather as a treat as you explained in Additional Details.

http://www.afrma.org/cc_grasshay.htm

I use my closet as a rat room :) It's not super big, but its just a plain, empty room, so there are really no hazards, and it's basically already rat proof. You can just leave all the rat stuff in there, since the only thing you'd really do in there is play with your rat. I just put toys, stuff they can hide in, and other things like that. You could also put up a little baby gate or something, if you wanted to keep the rats in there. Good luck!

I don't have a rat proofed room, but I keep their cage in my bedroom so I can regularly talk to them since that is where I normally am. My rats aren't much for exploring and I think they would be scared in the room by themselves. They don't like when I walk around with them on the floor, but they are content if I'm sitting down near their level. This is why I wouldn't bother rat proofing a room, but instead having a large cage with monitored play time.

I don't have any rat proof rooms or extra rooms for them so I usually let then play on my bed with me. When I grow up though I'm going to be a crazy rat lady with rats roaming everywhere >:) every rat is different so try finding what's best for them! My baby girls are explorers so what I do is sit on my bed (or floor, whatever works best) and I put a blanket over top of me. I bend my legs a weird way so it's kind of like mountains for them!:) then add rats. They prefer darkness over anything so it really gets them excited and they also get to explore. The most important thing is to learn to trust your rats. Let them explore the house when they get bigger and don't fit into small areas where you can't reach them. Just remember to watch then at all times :$

I let my rats free range in my bedroom for about 3-6 hours

a day. I rat proof it but making sure all electronics are turned of and the cords are all out of the way. I shut the windows and door and place a few towels along the bottom of the door as one rat likes to squeeze out (she literally goes as flat as a pan cake) I also don't use my wheelie study desk chair as I wouldn't want to run them over.

I make some homemade toys and place them over the floor and in a corner so they play in that and climb up my curtains, bed, desk, book case etc etc. I try and get rid of anything that could harm my rats and put it up high but you'll be amazed at what they can climb (my leg and lamp pole -.-) so just keep an eye on them.

I used to have a corner for them, it was about 3m big, but they soon plotted together and manged to jump over the cardboard (FRIGGEN 60 cm EVERY TIME, not sure how put they got out somehow) so in the end it was easier to just let them in my room.

When I get a nice big house, I will have a room just for my rats (as I plan on have about 20) but that will have to wait.

As much as I would love 1 I don't have a separate room for my ratties but I have rat proofed my room for them making sure all furniture is snug against the wall and all feet removed so there's no space underneath anything for them to hide (;

I don't have a rat room. I like having them in the living room, as that is where we spend most of our awake time, making them more a part of our day to day life, and they can see us and get our attention

I just use my bedroom. I make sure everything I don't want them chewing up is in a place they can't reach and everything else is blocked off.