10 Ways to Be Green With Your Rat

For a long time now people have been talking about being green and have been being green (Eco friendly). Some people are even starting to call this generation were in now the, "Green Generation". So I put together a chart of 10 easy ways to be green with your rat.

1. Using paper towels made from recycled paper when cleaning your rat's cage.


2. One of the easiest to do is to use paper shreds from your shredder for litter in the litter box. (If you're not sure if you have a shredder ask your parents, I'm sure you have one.) If you don't have a litter box, I wouldn't recommend it for the bedding you use for the rest of the cage, instead put a little in the cage instead of hey. (the shreds keep them very warm)



3. When you're eating fruits or vegetables, don't throw away the extra, give a little to your rats. But make sure you don't give some to your rats if you added sugar. Or cut off a piece of an apple your eating for your rats. (see "Foods to Avoid)



4. Instead of buying chew blocks, give your rats the middle giant seed in the middle of fruits such as plums, nectarines, and peaches. Rats love them!



5. Plant a garden. Pear tomatoes are full of vitamin C, which helps heal cuts, and are super easy to grow. So are regular and grape tomatoes. And rats love them.



6. Save boxes (tissue boxes from non - toxic items). Rats love to play and sleep in them.


7. For hammocks use an old t-shirt or a knee sock. Tie them to the bars of the cage and you have a hammock.

8. When you're emptying your rat's cage into the trash, instead of putting it in the trash, empty the soiled litter, with waste, in the green waste. The old bedding and waste (even paper shreds) will be made into fertilizer.

9. If you decide to build a maze for your rats, you don't have to buy wood, or a parrot ladder, you can use house held items such as rulers and books.

10. Save toilet paper rolls, rats love to play in them and sleep in them. If your rat is to big for toilet paper rolls, sometimes gift wrap will have wider tubes.

10 Things you probably don't know about rats

1. A really neat thing that most people don't know about rats is that they can hear ultrasounds. Meaning, they can hear things we can't hear because they're too high pitch. The most commonly heard animal that can hear these ultrasounds too, are bats. Some common animals that can also hear ultrasounds are, Dogs and cats (though they can't hear them as well as rats) and bats and dolphins (they can hear ultrasounds a little bit better than rats.)



2. Many rats love to swim. (If you are going to see if your rat likes swimming, do it in a bucket, inside, keeping a close eye on your rat and only filling the bucket with 2 - 3 inches of warm water.)



3. You can train your rat tricks. To learn how see my article, "How to train rats tricks."



4. Another thing most people don't know is that you can potty train your rat. To learn how see my article, "Potty Training Your Rat"

5. Rats produce a red pigment in their eyes called porphyrin. A large amount of porphyrin can be a sign of sickness or stress. Though, the interesting thing about porphryin is they bind metals.

6. Rats are such good climbers they are incapable of climbing a brick wall.

7. Seeing is a problem for rats. The first foot or so, they see clear, while the next 3 - 5 feet they see burly.

8. How do rats get around if they can't see well? Rats actually use their whiskers, their ultrasonic ears, and their super good noses.

9. In San diego, every year a national rat competition is held, where rats are tested on agility, swimming, standards of the rats (how they're built and how well their coat is.) And other stuff.

10. What are rat tails for? One thing they use their tail for is to balance. For example when you're holding rat and its on your shoulder, you may notice that when your rat is trying to move around or go on your other shoulder it will sometimes wrap its tail around your neck or face for balance. More importantly, when your rat starts to overheat, its blood circulation will increase to its tail, thus letting heat leave the rats tail and directly into the environment.

Sorry that's all ten,

Rat Man

" Dear Rat Man, What's My Rat Doing?"

There are some things that rats do, but you don't know why, or if they're doing something because they're sick or something's wrong. In this post I will tell you some weird things rats do, and why they do it.
One very common things rats do is called bruxing. Bruxing is when they grind there teeth together because they're relaxed or stressed, so if you're rubbing your rat's ears it might bruxe because its relaxed. But if something is scaring your rat, like a barking dog, and your rat starts to bruxe, that's probably because its stressed. Bruxing isn't unhealthy or bad for them, and you shouldn't stop your rats from bruxing because it's simply a way of communication.

Have you ever heard your rat squeak? If you you haven't, that's good. When rats squeak its because they're feeling pain. So they may squeak if you pick them up funny and it hurts them. But you can't always assume if another rat makes your rat squeak, the other rat did it on purpose. If you have another rat, they will clean each other and sometimes they accidentally scratch the rat they're cleaning. Butt other times they may actually be hurting each other on purpose. So if you buy two rats, and they fight, not just messing around, butt actually making each other bleed, its important to tell me, and I'll tell you what to do. Because sometimes you may not have to return one of your rats.

More things that rats do coming soon.