As a rat owner of over three years now, I’ve spent a lot of time and energy searching for the perfect bedding. It doesn’t seem to exist just yet, but I’ve found some bedding products that work well enough to be more than satisfactory. I’ve also listed a few bedding products I’ve tried that didn’t quite work out. Rats have fairly specific bedding needs, so until that perfect rat bedding is invented, consider trying a few of these products wiht your rats.
Traits of the Perfect Rat Bedding
Let’s begin by listing the traits a bedding product needs in order to be suitable for rats. Unfortunately, I don’t think any current commercial product has all of these features, but it’s a good starting point.
- Absorbency: Rat bedding needs to be highly absorbent. Rats produce lots of liquid waste.
- Unscented: Scented beddings like perfumed cat litter or red cedar chips are hazardous to rats’ respiratory health and may eve cause pneumonia. Always choose an unscented product.
- Safe to Chew: Think of rats like human infants. Whatever you give to them, it will end up in their mouths.
- Odor Control: Even if a cage is kept meticulously clean, a bedding that doesn’t provide odor control will cause your rat room to stink to high heaven.
- Fun for Nesting: Female rats especially love to nest. If your rats like nesting, they’ll appreciate a bedding they can use for that purpose.
- Low Mess: Bedding that’s too lightweight gets kicked out of the cage and ends up tracked into your carpet.
- No Dust: Dust can cause respiratory infections.
- Not Yummy: Bedding that is too tasty will be eaten!
What’s Worked
I’ve had some bedding successes in the past few years. Here are my favorites:
Yesterday’s News: This recycled paper bedding is low-dust, absorbent and offers average odor control. It’s easy to clean up and doesn’t get kicked out of cages and ground into my floor. I currently use this in all my litterboxes and in the cages that have an all-litter floor with no litterbox. There’s also a generic version by Petsmart’s store brand, Sophisticat, which has an odd odor but works equally well after it airs out a bit.
Fleece Liners: If you’re diligent about removing poop daily and changing liners every few days, these may be the best option. They offer zero dust and good absorbency if changed often. Leave them in too long, though, and they stink. There’s also the part where you have to be okay with putting fleece with rat urine on it in your washing machine every few days.
Ecobedding: Too flimsy to be used alone–it would need to be changed almost every day due to soaking through–but this makes a nice topper to a harder bedding for rats that like a cushion or like to do a lot of nesting. Ecobedding and fleece scraps are a good combination for nesting for pregnant females.
What Didn’t Work
I’ve also tried quite a few beddings I didn’t like. Here are a few:
Aspen Shavings: These are popular in the rat world, but I don’t care for them. They sometimes carry mites if purchased at pet stores. Also, wood shavings get kicked out of the cage easily and end up clogging the vacuum.
Swheat Scoop: Love it for my cat, but the rats just ate it and refused to eat their lab blocks!
World’s Best Cat Litter: The rats ate this one, too. Also, it smells like Fritos, which I’m not sure I prefer over rat urine by a very large margin.
Paper Towels: These are fine for a few days for a sick or injured rat, or for a new mom or mom-to-be who is nesting, but paper towels are not an efficient bedding for long-term use and there’s no real odor control.
Hemp Shavings: I really wanted to like these, but it just didn’t work. The rats liked the texture, but it ended up all over the floor as they wrestled in the bedding. I’d recommend this bedding for small animals living in cages with a deep, solid bottom. Odor control is decent, absorbency is not as good as I’d expected from hemp.
jelenawoehr
@PetLvr PetLvr [Blog] \ Rat Bedding Choices http://cli.gs/6AHEn
HART (1-800-HART)
(new PetLvr post ).. Rat Bedding Choices: As a rat owner of over three years now, I’ve.. http://cli.gs/NbuLV
Kim Smith
It’s not always just about cats and dogs… Rat Bedding Choices – http://ow.ly/oQCW
Kim Smith
It’s not always just about cats and dogs… Rat Bedding Choices – http://ow.ly/oQDe
Ratbone Rescues
RT @PETCOfoundation It’s not always just about cats and dogs… Rat Bedding Choices – http://ow.ly/oQDe ~ sooo close to Rat "Terrier" lol 🙂
Shuron
I use aspen bedding and I love it. It meets most of the requirements listed. It is oil and aroma free, it is absorbent, it is safe for them to eat, it does not taste good, it is fun for nesting, it has low dust(but does have a little that I like to use a sifter and sift out). It is light weight however and will get kicked out of the cage easily but is easy to clean up off non carpeted areas with a broom. A vaccume will suck it right off a carpet as well. It is not very good for odor control since it is all natural but that means I just have to clean it a little more often. But I like it better than anything else I have used. The best part is, its super cheap and comes in bulk at ANY feed store. It is a horse bedding and I discovered it with my horses and now use it for my rats, mice and hamster.
kdreptiles
I stopped using Aspen because of the odor. The aspen itself (even completely clean) smells like pee. it made my room stink worse than the rats themselves. I use Pine pellets, that can be bought in any feed store in 40 lb bags. The original use for them was to water them down and let them dry for a light, fluffy horse bedding. Keeping them in pellet form is very convenient. Each pellet expands 5x its size. They are kiln dried and compressed, so a lot of the oils in the pine are taken out. I also use them for my Bearded Dragons, who also have very liquid waste. It absorbs the liquid extremely fast, leaving a swollen bit of pellets with just the dried poo left on the top. I was worried about the dust in them, but all of the smaller particles go down to the bottom of the cage. When you clean your rat cage, you will notice the top of the bedding looks unused, but underneath of it is all the small, used particles. I can hardly smell my rats when using this bedding. I also only need a very thin layer of it, just enough to not see the bottom anymore, which will last my rats quite awhile.
rat removal
Using sprays around the home is another way to discourage rats form getting near the house. Spray around the base of your home makes it difficult for rats to actually approach the house and get in. It is not necessary to use chemical products and baking soda and even peppermint extract work well as deterrents.
Rat Bedding
Chopped cardboard bedding is also a great bedding for rats. There is another comprehensive list of rat beddings on theerodent.co.uk website which includes the one’s listed here as well as some others including cardboard bedding.