[lizzydeztic]

for the past few months i could hold my rats for a long time without poopy accidents. now if i have them out for only 10 minutes there's tons of poop all over me. why is this? it's kind of grotesque. it's not just small pellet sized poop either like what is in their cage, before this started i'd find a few marbles here and there and that didn't bother me. now it's like a ton of poo all at once while they clean their faces while sitting on my lap. icky! and my rat ronny likes to sit on my chest and bite my boobs =( lol

 

[Forensic]

Are you taking them out at a different time? Maybe they haven't done their business yet?

 

[lina]

My rats will poop on anyone who is new to them I find it funny coz they never do it on me. I tell people to put the rat and the poop back into the cage. After they do this a few times the rats soon learn where to do their muck and it soon stops till the next person. Lol.

 

[DonnaK]

The only thing I can think of is something outside of the cage is scaring them?

 

[codcommando]

have their been any changes in your room around the time they started this behavior? If not just nip it in the bud by scolding them and putting them back in their cage when they do it and they should propably stop.

 

[OnlyOno]

you can also see them forming a poop right under their tails (well, i can, but picasso doesn't have any hair there, lol) and so when it starts to look like picasso has decided on a scrotum after all, i place her back in the cage for 10 min or so and then i can play with her again, after she has pooped in her cage. i'm not sure how effective this is in actually training your rat to not poop elsewhere, but it works for me.

 

[lizzydeztic]

yea i always catch them getting ready to poo when they are on someone else since i'm so protective and always keep an eye on them. on me, however, it's hard since i don't want to hold them in my hands at all times, i let them crawl around on me. i'm going to try to teach them that poo stays in the cage. we have a love seat in their room that i usually put the cage on and open the door to let them come out on their own and there's never poo this way. i want to keep it with this method since i like to let them feel very secure, but whenever i just take them out to sit on my shoulder at the computer they end up pooing. it wasn't like this at first, but it started about 2 months after me getting them. i used to take them out without the cage being by the love seat and they wouldn't poo. im going to test this out and see if it really is happening during certain times of the day. now that i think of it i do notice it happens around 10 at night when they really start to wake up.

thanks you guys.