Litterbox training (rats)

packratt · #1 (**permalink**) 08-28-2004, 02:32 PM

Hi I'm Overtech Daughter. I have a new pet rat. How do you litterbox trian a rat? it would make my life easy!

If you have any other tips, I would be happy to recieve!

NicoleRussell · #2 (**permalink**) 08-28-2004, 03:03 PM

wow that's a first for me/
I have never tried although I can see it might be a possibility. Wish I could help you...::::shrug:::maybe someone else might be able to.

Podo · #3 (**permalink**) 08-28-2004, 04:08 PM

This has to be a joke.......You come to a forum called RedTailBoa looking for help on training your rat........I'm just not used to that type of stuff on other forums.

NicoleRussell · #4 (**permalink**) 08-28-2004, 06:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Podo

This has to be a joke.......You come to a forum called RedTailBoa looking for help on training your rat........I'm just not used to that type of stuff on other forums.

if you look on the forum list you will see a space for all animals--from birds to snakes to exotics in general. I see nothing odd about posting on this site for other animals--

RogueReptile · #5 (**permalink**) 08-28-2004, 06:43 PM

I've never actually potty trained a rat, but have done it with other animals- rabbits, pigs, goats. If you have a cage that the rat stays in and a small "litter box", put some of the rat's droppings in a clean litter box. Not alot of them but, enough for when he walks over to it he will be able to "smell" it. After a little while (it usually doesn't take long), he will start to use it. Rats and most other animals don't want to poop where they live, eat, and sleep. This is just one way of doing it.

RogueReptile · #6 (**permalink**) 08-28-2004, 06:45 PM

By the way, Nicole your new avatar is SCARY!!!!!
But I like it anyway. haha

NicoleRussell · #7 (**permalink**) 08-28-2004, 10:12 PM

hey, it ain't supposed to be pretty LOL

Silvermoonfox · #8 (**permalink**) 08-28-2004, 10:14 PM

Rats can be trained to use a litter box but since they don't have control of their bowels or urination they will still go wherever. To begin training you'll have to have one spot that they can go. The best way to do this is to have a small box with litter or bedding in it in the cage and continue putting rat poo and soiled bedding in the box. Eventually the rat will start to go in there instead of wherever it wants. The trick is to keep the rest of the cage from smelling like rat. Make sure you're not just letting the rat run around the house because that's just to much space for the rat to remember to get to a litter box. It's pretty much the same as teaching a dog or cat to go in a litter box, you just have to use redirection and have patience.

B|i5S · #9 (**permalink**) 11-18-2004, 01:36 PM

silvermoonfox has awesome ideas so does rogue reptile

I have pet rats and it was so easy to littler train them I couldn't beleive it.
I have a HUGE cage for them and it came with a high corner litter pan. so one day I put some Daily scoops in the pan (it's recycled newspaper pellets) and placed it in teh cage, my standard walked right up to it, smelled it...walked in and took a crap! haha
then the smaller dumbo followed suit. It's been over a month now and they still use the litter box every day and never poop in their cage anymore. I am going to take them off shavings completely over this next month and switch over to old towels old t shirts and I have a few metres of nice blue fleece I'm going to use as well for the bottom of the cage.

If I don't change the litter box @ least once a week they make a fuss though and they start to chuck their poo out of their litter box haha

so make sure to keep that litter clean!

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