Environmental Enrichment For Your Rat Or Mouse

Rats & mice are extremely active and intelligent animals, and thus require exercise and mental stimulation for optimal health. These animals are often purchased as pets for children and many are housed in smaller than adequate cages with only the bare essentials such as food, water and an exercise wheel. Just imagine how bored you would be living in a bare room with an exercise bike as the only form of mental and physical activity?

There are a number of fun and easy ways you can provide toys and enrich the environment of your pet rat or mouse:

Toys to CHEW - These are necessary for dental health, as rodents teeth grow continuously throughout their life and need to be constantly worn down. Safe chew toys for rats and mice include rawhide chews, nylabones, untreated wood, cardboard rolls, boxes and egg cartons.

Toys to SHRED - Softer items such as toilet paper or tissues, sisal rope and straw provide hours of entertainment for your pet rat or mouse. They particularly enjoy shredding these substances to use as bedding material to line their sleeping areas. Ensure you do not give your pets any toys containing soft rubber, soft plastics, leather or string as these materials can cause an intestinal obstruction.

Toys to PUSH & CARRY - Many rats and mice love to carry or push small toys around. Sturdy, hollow plastic cat toys with bells inside or acrylic toys provide great entertainment for your pet.

CLIMBING Toys - Ladders, branches, hammocks, ropes, PVC tubes, boxes and bird perches can provide numerous climbing opportunities for your pet rat or mouse. These items can be secured to the sides or top of the cage to increase the amount of play area in your pet's cage.

FORAGING Toys - Rats and mice in the wild spend much of their day foraging for food. In captivity, we often put out a bowl of food for our pet rat or mouse and that bowl is simply placed in the same area, with the same food in it every day. Our pets quickly become lazy, bored and overweight from the lack of enrichment and foraging opportunities in their lives. Provide your pet rat or mouse with mental stimulation by hiding their food in specially designed foraging toys, treat balls, cardboard rolls or tubes. Bird foraging toys made from bamboo or cholla cactus can also be used for rodents.

TUNNELS - Rats and mice in the wild use and construct tunnels from items in their environment on a regular basis. Tunnels made of sturdy plastic, acrylic or PVC can be placed in the cage or attached to the side or top of your pet's house. Ensure you select a tunnel with a large enough diameter to prevent your rat or mouse from becoming stuck in the tunnel. Blocks of untreated wood can also be hollowed out to make tunnels which rats and mice may enlarge themselves. You can provide ready-made tunnels for your pet, or allow them to construct their own from various materials provided in their environment.

EXERCISE WHEELS & BALLS - Activity wheels provide an excellent way for your rat or mouse to exercise within the confines of their cage. Solid wheels made from plastic or acrylic are safer and preferable over wheels with wire bars that can trap your pet's feet or tail.

Exercise balls are also a great fitness tool for your rat or mouse outside of the cage. Always monitor your pet while they are playing in an exercise ball to ensure they do not overheat and are always playing in a safe, flat area.

If you have a pet rat or mouse, use your imagination and enrich their life by providing them with a range of toys that will keep them entertained for hours.

Desert Kangaroo Rats

Regardless of which breed of rat you are talking about it is considered a rodent. Just the word rodent brings up poor mental images for some people but the many species of rodents have unique characteristics that make them interesting to learn about. The desert kangaroo rat has learned to adapt to the harsh conditions of deserts.

The desert kangaroo rat is a rat. They are not related to the kangaroo in any way but they do have a hop that is similar to the kangaroo. They have some biped behaviors that make them different from most other rats.

Their scientific name is Dipodomys deserti. Studies of their evolution show that they are not related to the kangaroo mouse and completely different from the desert rat-kangaroo, which has gone extinct as a species. These rats are medium sized and have a round shape to their bodies. Their hairless ears are round and they have a tail that is usually longer in length than their bodies. They have external pouches in their cheeks that are lined with fur. These pouches are used to help them store and carry food they find in the harsh desert environment.

The desert kangaroo rat is a native species to North American and populate the sandy, dry desert-like areas there. They are also, now, found in some rocky areas of Central America. These rats prefer to live in burrows, like other rodents. These burrows help protect them during the day when the heat can reach dangerous temperatures.

One of the most unique adaptations they have is that they can live their entire lives without water. They don't commonly go a whole life without water but it is possible. Their bodies concentrate urine four times as much as humans do. This allows them to get more water out of the food they find. This is probably the most important factor in their ability to thrive in desert conditions.

Their diets consist of insects, seeds, and any vegetation they can find during the night. They search for food during the night to avoid the heat of the daytime. They use their pouches to carry food back to their burrows to store. When living in a desert, it is important to save the food that is found and not eaten right away.

These rodents have high pitched sounds they create and use for communication. These sounds are also used during their mating season which runs from February to October. A liter of offspring is around four newborns. The babies are born without hair and are unable to see. They are cared for in the burrows until they are old enough to venture out safely. Females can produce three liters each year which is important because their lifespan is only three to five years.

Desert kangaroo rats are usually not considered a good breed for a pet rat, although they are kept in captivity in some situations. Most pet rats today are slightly domesticated for use as pets. This helps them become better companions for humans. Regardless, the desert kangaroo rat is an interesting study of survival in harsh conditions and their desire to survive is commendable.