[Night]

Anyone else have a play area for their kiddos? I have a large Martin's playpen and love it. Besides an awesome area for playtime, it's also a great to throw the rats in while cleaning. I change it up weekly, and their favorite things are the hanging shelf and big boxes with lots of holes cut in them (they run in/out like crazy!). Here are a couple setups I've had the past few months...

 

[Selz]

Is it permanently set up, or can it be collapsed? I'd love something like this, but I just haven't the space unless it could stow away small when it in use :-(

 

[AmyP]

That's pretty cool! I have a 'rat room'..basically a small room at the bottom of the basement stairs where I can shut all the doors and we hang out in there. I always go with them, but may someday stick them down there alone when I need to clean the cage. So far I have not found anything that they can get into trouble with...

 

[Dan203]

Their cage is in our dining room. There is only one entry point into the dining room from the kitchen so I used some coreplast to make a gate to block it off and then rat proofed the rest of the room.

 

[Sabatea]

I made a large playpen when I first got my rats, but I dismantled it when Dela learned how to jump ontop of it. XD Instead, now I have just rat-proofed my room and they free-range in there now. This is what it looked like though (With more toys XD):

 

[PawsandClaws]

We have one made of home depot tempered harboard panels. It was super inexpensive to make (like $8?) and big enough that I could sit inside while they played. I am 5 ft 10 so not a small person. We don't really use it anymore since the boys have free range access to the whole room now but they enjoyed it when it was up. We filled it with 4 Fisher Price toys that we bought for a bargain at the local thrift store, their 12 inch Wodent wheel, a ferret ball pit, tubes and pvc pipes. I have pictures somewhere but can't dig them out currently. Only downside to this cheap playpen was that if you put anything tall inside it the boys would use that as leverage to leap up out of the pen and onto the sides.

 

[Night]

Is it permanently set up, or can it be collapsed? I'd love something like this, but I just haven't the space unless it could stow away small when it in use :-(

Yep, it can! It folds down to a size that can be easily stored under a bed I have mine permanently setup, but only because I have the room in my bedroom and I use it daily.

 

[Night]

I wish I could have my ratties free-roam! I'm pretty anal about stuff being clean, and we all know rats like to mark as they walk around, so I'd be tempted to mop the floor every time they were out, lol

 

[PawsandClaws]

Yeah, I understand that mentality since my boyfriend is very much like that. He gives the wood floors a quick swoosh with a swiffer sometimes but we keep everything off the floors anyway so only the ground really gets marked. The boys are also fantastic about going back into their cage for real pees or number twos so we never find any accidents. They have access back to their DCN the whole time so they can control when they need to go back to use the potty. The play pen was great and everything but I still felt like I was just putting them in another cage (if that makes sense?). I tried to vary the toys a lot and make it exciting but they still spent a huge amount of time just trying to escape the pen. Now that they have whole access to the room (and to us!) They stay out for hours (minus potty breaks) and seem to really enjoy it. Before i built the diy pen, I also wanted to get the Martins but did not like that I wasn't going to be able to sit in there with them. Not knocking people with play pens though, they are great if you can't free range for whatever reason.

 

[mimsy]

I use our bathroom and my bed. The bathroom is easy to do a quick sweep and mob afterwards. The bed-well that can get a little groddy and needless to say I change my bedding a lot more now that I have so many. I get a routine now with stripping off the main blankets and pillows and then tossing on the old comforter and then a small blanket over that so that they carpet shark under the little one. There are a few girls that can just go on my bed without any ritual but they use their litter box really well and don't mark everything. But I love having them with me when I watch movies or I'm on the computer, which is on a little wheeled table that I use at the bed.

our bedroom has been really cleaned out of all unnecessary things, all electronics have cords going up to high shelves. I don't let them free range the bedroom, but in case someone falls off the bed I don't go into panic mode-and Goose taught me well about rat proofing.