[Willieboo]

Pumice stone (AKA lava bites) is all I can get them to chew on; they won't touch wood of any kind with a 10 foot pole. Normally I don't worry, but because I only see a very small amount of pumice particles lying around and because I've seen them break little pieces off and then sit there and chew like they would their food blocks I've started to wonder. They're not breaking a whole bunch off at a time, but should I be worried about their health? I don't want it to block up their digestive system or anything, so I'm not sure if I should take it away...but they just won't chew anything else. What would they find palatable about that anyway?

I also noticed that when we tried hard boiled eggs, Pipsqueak wanted to eat the eggshell and nothing else (and I think they don't do that usually). Are some rats just not selective about what they put in the tank?

 

[doctorowl]

Hmm... can rats have pica? It's probably impossible to tell whether they're actually eating it or not, but I would assume they won't generally eat inedible things (although as a pet parent you have to wonder sometimes, I've had to pull many inedible objects out of my pets' mouths way too many times...) My guess is they're just chewing it into tiny crumbles and just spitting it out? I've also heard of rats who will LICK rocks... just sit there and lick them lol. Who knows why.