For today’s foraging Friday I will be reviewing Decembers ratty box! Thanks so much to Ratty Box for sending me there December box - its full of amazing goodies and my rats love it! Now if you didn’t see my last review of ratty box its basically a rat subscription service where every month on the 10th they send you a box filled with 5-6 items for your rats. These include a large special item, a comfort item like a hammock or tunnel, an activity toy or foraging toy, and some treats. For Decembers ratty box we got 6 awesome items with the first one being the reindeer hide. This adorable hide has a soft removable bottom that is perfect for the rats to sleep on. My rats really seem to like this hide and just like with the banana bed from last months ratty box they have taken turns sleeping on it either separately or together during free-range, and I can’t wait to put it in the cage when I do my Christmas theme in a few days! The next item in the box is a super cute red tunnel with little snowflakes on it. Not only is this tunnel adorable but its super soft inside and both ends have supporting ring which helps keep the tunnel open (solving an issue I had with the prior tunnel). My rats and especially my more skittish girls really love tunnels so I can’t wait to put this in their Christmas cage as well - for now they’ve been using it during free range and often pop inside to chill for a few minutes or eat a snack. The next item in this months ratty box is the activity item and this months is a fun chew toy. This is made very similar to last months chew toy and my rats absolutely love chewing on these! I’ve already put this one in the cage and within a few days they’ve halfway destroyed it - and for rats who usually don’t chew much its pretty awesome to find them doing so. The only thing to keep in mind with colored wood toys like this is that they will bleed color if they get wet from pee or water so just keep that in mind. Next up we have some treats and this months ratty box included 3 different treats! The first is an absolute favorite among rats and those are the critter pops - these red and green rice pops are super cute and great to hang up in the cage for a tasty snack! My rats have already eaten one of these pops and are very excited to eat the rest (which they’ll get to do so when I hang them in the Christmas cage). The next treat is a mix of dried cranberries and coconut flakes. I’m wary of giving my rats large dried fruit due to some bad experiences with them choking on it so I’ll be holding that back, however I will be giving them the coconut flakes and considering their reaction to them so far I feel like these may be a new favorite treat! Finally the last treat is Rascally Rat Nurtiberries and these treats are a combination of lots of yummy things like dried bananas and green peas. My rats absolutely LOVED these and went crazy for them, making them an instant hit! Overall ratty box for this month was amazing and my rats are loving all the treats and fun items! Thank you again to ratty box for letting me review the December box - I had a blast and my rats are loving it! If you would like to check out ratty box you can do so by going to their Facebook page or website which I will link right below this: Ratty Box website (enter the code BRUX for 10% off your first subscription): https://www.therattybox.com/ Ratty Box facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/TheRattyBox/ Video review:Today I will be reviewing some hammocks sent to me from Robyn's Rat Hammocks. Robyn sent me quite a generous selection of hammocks, including a cage set of 4 and several hammocks representing some of her other hammock types. Robyn sells 2 smaller sets and one large set, with the smaller sets being all the same fabric and consisting of either 3 or 4 distinct hammock types. The 3 piece set costs $20 (all prices include shipping and this comes down to $6.67 per hammock) and it consists of a double decker hammock, a standard hammock, and either a cube hammock or tunnel hammock. The 4 piece set costs $24 ($6/per hammock) and includes a double decker hammock, a cup hammock (basically a standard hammock with a bowl shape to the bottom), a tunnel hammock, and a cube hammock. And finally the large box set includes 15 hammocks made from various fabrics and costs $50 (just $3.33/per hammock!). Now the first set I reviewed was Robyn's 4 piece koala cage set. Like I wrote above this comes with a double decker hammock, a cup hammock, a tunnel hammock, and a cube hammock. All these hammocks were great quality, consisting of 2 fabric layers, having 4 metal grommets to hang them (with the exception being the cube which hangs from 4 fabric loops), and being a great size for multiple rats. I was especially exited to see that the tunnel hammock had 4 attachment points since the main issue with tunnel hammocks tends to be them staying closed when hung up, and having 2 extra attachment points took care of that and allowed my rats to use them without any extra modifications. I also really liked the cup hammock design, since I haven't seen this sort of hammock before and I found that the cup helped to stabilize the hammock so that no matter where I hung it in the cage it was balanced and appealing to my rats. Both the double decker hammock and cube hammocks where also amazing quality - I love the size of the double decker hammock in particular, and while the fabric loop hangers for the cube hammock aren't my favorite I found that they worked well to hang the hammock and my rats haven't tried chewing them so far (I've had the hammocks in the cage for about 2 weeks now). Moving on from the set the other hammocks Robyn sent me were also amazing quality. Like the set of hammocks all of these hammocks consisted of 2 fabric layers and were hung by 3-4 metal grommets for maximum stability and to ward off chewing. Along with a few same style hammocks to the ones in the set Robyn sent me 3 other types, and these included pocket hammocks (which are enclosed on 3 sides and have one side open like a pocket or envelope would - I hung these on the side of my cage and my rats apparently designated the bottom one as a food stashing and eating spot!), standard hammocks (like the cup hammocks but without the indent - very plush and cozy though and I was surprised to see my more skittish girls really take to sleeping out in the open in these), and corner hammocks (I really liked the size of these since it allowed me to actually stretch it across the corner of my cage and hang it in a stable place). All these hammocks shared the same level of quality as the set and my rats have been having a blast jumping from one sleeping spot to the next! Thank you so much to Robyn's Rat Hammocks for letting me review some of their hammocks - these hammocks are all amazing quality and priced incredibly. Considering how many commercial hammocks go for $10-15 even for the simpler hammock varieties its amazing to see Robyn selling sets including double hammocks and cube hammocks and more for so much less. If your looking for hammocks in bulk or even just looking for a smaller cage set I'd highly encourage you to check out Robyn's Rat Hammocks! Link to the Robyn's Rat Hammock facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/254050638492604/ Thanks to Instagram page mooseandfred2020 for sending me this cube hammock prototype to review!
For our 38th foraging Friday I will be reviewing the Gefryco 3 Level Cat Tower. This foraging toy is technically a simple batting toy mean't for cats, but like many of my other foraging toys meant for other animals they work just as well (and sometimes better!) for rats.
As far as this tower toy goes the main attraction is for your cat (or rat :P) to bat the balls around. This toy comes with 6 balls to allow for that that easily snap in to the toys frame as well, and its pretty much the perfect size for rats to enjoy. I've taken this toy one step further by filling the 3 slotted balls with treats as well, adding extra incentive for my rats to bat around the balls and generally interact with the toy. Initially I expected this to be the only time they used the toy, but the longer I've left it out in free-range and the cage, the more I've seen the rats use it on their own without any treats as well, so it seems like it serves both a foraging purpose and an activity purpose for my rats. Cleaning wise the tower is easy to clean due to it being completely disassemblable. It only takes maybe 2-3 minutes tops to assemble or disassemblable it, and since everything is plastic you can easily clean it with water and then dry it off. Adding treats (if you choose to) is also easy - you can either place them in one of the 3 tracks the balls roll on, or place some small treats into the slotted balls for an extra challenge. Overall I was pleasantly surprised with this foraging toy and how much my rats have taken to using it. Initially I thought it would be a bit too large for the rats to comfortably use, but it ended up being quite a bit smaller than I thought and that made it the perfect size for my rats to enjoy. Link to this foraging toy: https://amzn.to/375QuFe Video showcasing this foraging toy:For today's foraging Friday I will be again doing something a bit different in that I will be reviewing another rat subscription box. This time I will be looking at a rat service known as Misfit Mischief Maker, who generously sent me their Thanksgiving box to review (sorry I'm a bit late!) Now to start this rat box is predominantly treat based, with an incredible variety of treats to sample! There are also a few fun foraging toys and even some items for the human (looking at you cookie recipe!) To start I want to go over the treats, and the first treat I want to go over is the bento treat box. This box contains a a ton of different treats, with all of them going over well with my rats. The treats included in this box include cheese yogies (a rat favorite!), dried rose buds/dandelions (safe for rats and my rats adored them!), mini dog treats (my rats love these as well), small animal treats like mini doughnuts or these red and purple flowers (my rats seem especially fond of the flower treats), some yogie melts (a human baby treat which I've found my rats enjoy...as do I 😳), and some baby puffs (also a human baby weaning food that goes over really well with rats - in fact I often break these up and use them to trick train!) Another treat bag in this ratty box is a bag of mixed treats. These includes dried pasta, trail mix wheats, banana chips, cheerios, sunflower seeds, and a few other awesome treats. Yet another treat bag includes mainly black oil sunflower seeds along with a variety of other nuts. My rats are huge on this, however due to them being a bit fatty and high in protein I'll be keeping these to mix into my foraging toys or scatter feed slowly over time. Another bag of treats is purely Gerber puffs - these are one of my main training treats (I break them into 2-5 pieces each) and so I'll be using these for training, but they also make great healthy treats (in moderation) to give your rats on a daily basis (they also are great for foraging toys). The next food item, is a bag of dog treats that are flavored like peanut butter. These immediately got Bean's attention and later (once she stashed a few) got eaten up by all the rats. The final food item included is a small popcorn corn. I used to get these for my hamsters all the time, and got them a few times for my rats as well. You pop these in the microwave just like normal popcorn and they make cute rodent sized popcorn that is the perfect size for rats. Moving on to the chew toys and foraging toys the first one I want to go over is a large foraging container which you can hang in the cage or put on the cage floor. This foraging container includes crinkled paper in fall colors, along with a finger trap (great for chewing up and used in many bird toys), some chopsticks, some wooden spoons, and some paper straws. This sort of foraging toy encourages a lot of digging and chewing which is fun for rats, especially if you sprinkle in some treats to encourage them even more. The next toy is a pair of fun DIY foraging toys made from toilet tubes or paper towel rolls. These include 3 skinny loops cut from the cardboard tube with treats wrapped in tissue paper stuffed in the middle. The inside treats are more Gerber puffs and my rats have really enjoyed tearing up the toys and eating the treats. They especially love to tear up the tissue paper and of course they loved the treats. The next 2 toys are fairly similar, so I'll talk about them together. One is a handful of paper straws, which are perfect for chewing up or adding some color to your rat cage. Alternatively I make some of my agility props from these so that is another option to use them. The other similar item is a bundle of applewood sticks. This wood is safe for rats to chew and they really enjoy chewing on them (as Bean demonstrates in the video). The final items included are more for the human. First you have a cute leaf ornament which can be hung on a tree or elsewhere as decoration. Next you have a recipe for sugar cookies, along with a cookie cutter (this months is a turkey cookie cutter but she was nice enough to send me a rat cookie cutter). You also get a box of yogurt covered cranberries - this is possibly also for the rats, however I've had bad experiences with rats choking on stick foods so I tend to avoid raisins and dried fruits. With that being said I enjoy yogurt covered dried fruits like this so I'll get this treat and of course the rats have a plethora of other treats to enjoy! Finally she also sent me a cute Turkey card and pie rat sticker (hehe). All in all Misfit Mischief Market's rat box was amazing to review and my rats are so excited for all the new treats! I won't have to buy treats for a while after this, and I plan to cycle through the various treats slowly so my rats can really enjoy the wide variety. The foraging toys provided were also a lot of fun for my rats, and they especially enjoyed chewing through the cardboard tube toys and digging through the foraging container. The applewood was also much appreciated - I had no idea my rats were going to be such huge fans of chewing it and now knowing that i will have to get more in the future. Thanks to Misfit Mischief Market for sending me this box - it was a lot of fun to review and my rats love it! You can check out Misfit Mischief Market and their rat box here: https://www.facebook.com/Misfit-Mischief-Market-102820874872796/ Video showcasing the Misfit Mischief Market Rat Box: |
AboutHey there! Here you will find tips and tricks on rat care and training, along with information not found elsewhere on this site. If you have questions or suggestions for me, feel free to contact me through the contact page. Archives
October 2021
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