The rat's cage and Jada

I've come to discover that rats are just like mice - they can get through really small openings, they can squeeze their bodies through just about anything if they've got the initiative. With Mrs Dingle I could leave the cage door open all day and she'd merrily just stay in her cage and run around moving her peanuts from one end to the other end - come and look to see where I was, poke her head out to see what's going on, go chew on something, take a nap, have a sip of water, take a crap, etc, etc.

Jada's a completely different rat. She needs to be free - she's never gotten tamed. I've yet to hold her or have her on my shoulder or anything like that Recently she's been spending more time OUT of the cage than in it - and most of it's been under one of the bookcases in the room that I have their cage in - she's been having an excellent adventure chewing the carpets, some fabric, and pooping all over the place and driving the dogs insane. Daisy especially wouldn't come out of the room when we were home. She'd made it her mission in life to find out what that little black and white thing that was moving very quickly between the bottom of things in that room was because she was quite sure it smelled like food! So it was just a matter of time before Jada ended up as dinner.

It's so funny that even today the cats stll have taken no notice of the rats. I can't believe it. They even spend time in that room and they just don't care. The dogs are always in there when I'm in there because cage cleaning mean Cheerios!

Anyway - here's some pictures of my new and improved cage - it took me most of the weekend to do it and my hands are super sore from winding the wires to put the chicken wire on. If she can get through this I give up!


Pre Fort-Knox cage 


Fort Knox (I hope!) 


Jada saying - "there must some way out of here though?" 


"Mommy - you've taken all my FUN away!"