New babies, looking for some cage advice!

[CrazyRatLady]

I got three gorgeous little PEW babies yesterday evening. I had been wanting to get two new girls for some time. When I went to check out the rats at a local pet store there were only three PEW females. Now I have never been a huge fan of PEWs, not that I had anything against them either, I was just sort of neutral. But from the moment I laid eyes on these little bubs all curled up in a fuzzy pile I fell in love. Even though I went in intending to only get two, I decided I would take all three, I couldn't leave their little sister all alone! PEWs are notorious for being harder to find a home for and often ending up as snake food :/

A couple of weeks ago I upgraded to the Super Pet Deluxe Multi-Level Ferret Home from a smaller yet roomy cage for my two ~10 month old girls. This cage has one inch bar spacing and my two older girls are a bit chubby so I had no doubt they'd be fine in that cage. Now here is where my little PEWs come in, I currently have them in my girls old cage, I'll keep them in there for a while and slowly start introducing them to my older girls. But it will probably be a couple of months or so until the bubs are big enough to not be able to get out of the big cage that the other girls are in. I'm wondering if I should just keep them in the old cage until they're large enough, or cover the big cage in mesh wire so that all five can be together once intros are done and they're all comfortable. Even if I do keep the young girls separated, I'd still have the whole group together when free ranging in the bathroom after initial intros were done so that they could play together and get accustomed to each other. Any advice is greatly appreciated! (:

The big girls cage:




The babies cage: (back when the big girls were still in it as you can see by the full hammock)


And a picture of the new babies because they're just so freaking cute! I don't know who these two are, but baby #3 was sleeping up on the 2nd level. If I had to guess I would say it was Freya and Alaska. (they weren't named when this pic was taken) But you're not really missing anything since they're all identical.

[cagedbirdsinging]

Gorgeous girls!

It depends on how much you and they like their current cage, but there is also the chance that your new babies may have a slimmer figure as they grow and will be able to flatten themselves through the bars easily. In that case, you'd leave the mesh covering on. It's rather unsightly, in my opinion, so you'd have to gauge how you'll feel about that.

For now, head on down to Tractor Supply Company and grab yourself a roll of hardware cloth and a pack of zip ties. You'll also need a wire cutter if you don't have one.

I don't like Super Pet cages personally, but I'm a huge fan of Martin's cages. Other people prefer Critter Nation cages. It's hard to go wrong with either one of those choices.

[LightningWolf]

Actually Tractor Supply sells Cage Wire, which is different. It's 1 inch by 1/2 inch and is stronger then hardware cloth (and more expensive) I think that is what Cagebird meant unless for some reason the website doesn't mention it and none of them around here sells it.

Since it would just be temporary if you move them all into the larger cage you can get Hardware Cloth from Home Depot and Lows. If you were wanting to build your own wire cage Or if it was permanent (Only would do on a cage that's spacing was bigger then 2 inches) then cage wire would be better. But for this go with hardware cloth.

Oh and also as Cagebird mentioned. If they know they can get out they might try again, so put the hardware cloth on it Before you put them in that way they think they can't get out. If it ends up that even as adults they can get out of 1 inch cage spacing you can get cage wire or get another cage.

Yeah! Another PEW Lover They are my favorite variety of rat, to be honest though you don't normally see them here in Texas, even in the feeder bins. Normally it's Black and Fawn hoodeds. I've only ever seen one here. as you can figure I'm going to say they are adorable

Oh for identifying you can put a bit of food coloring (Or baby food, or berry juice) on their tail or back. You could in theory also use the same color but make dashes on their tail to tell.

[CrazyRatLady]

Thanks for the advice guys! I'll definitely go check the hardware store. I'm going to start intros between them and my older girls. I put the two cages close and they're already very curious about each other! Lol. And I did actually do the food coloring thing. :P You really don't see a lot of PEWs there? I figured they were abundant everywhere.