Cage model, bedding, how often you are changing it, how many rats. Ventilation matters more for rats than for almost anything else and the setups people land on vary a lot. Also interested in what you tried first and dropped.
Want a licensed vet to look at this too? We will put it in front of the vets who answer here, and post their reply on this thread.
Hello, this a wonderful question! The environment that I rat lives in is extremely important not only to its physical health but also mental health as well, and the key to allowing your rat to have a healthy and enjoyable for life. When you first get a rat you want to make sure you have the cage and the interior properly set up and prepared. The best cages you can get for a rat is the Critter Nation variety. Rats are a aboreal/semiaboreal. A lot of pet owners will get a large cage that they would put a hamster or a reptile in, but rats need to have the ability to climb and they need a lot of ventilation. Pneumonia can easily cause upper respiratory infections in rats. Once you get the proper cage that gives them a lot of room to climb, you can start putting the enrichment inside. A lot of things you can find around the house make great rat enrichment. Small containers that you can tie to the side of the cage, toilet paper and paper towel rolls, boxes from Amazon or Chewy (we all know we have a lot of those!), and even those cool scarf hangers you can find on Amazon make wonderful climbing agility tools for rats. You want to try to stay away from wood as it does like to hold the smell of rat urine, and especially the male rats have very strong smelling urine. Rats love hammocks, especially types that they can go inside and bury themself into. You can purchase these on Amazon, Chewy, or even Etsy! The happiest rat will have something to dig in at the bottom of the cage. Approximately 4 in of bedding for them to dig and tunnel into. One great enrichment trick you can do that is super simple - hiding treats inside the bedding for them to find! Some good options are aspen or hemp shavings, ensuring it is dust free. Each rat should have at least 3.5 cubic feet of space. In layman terms if you get the critter Nation cage, maximum, you want to have five rats. A very important detail - you must keep rats in at least pairs. A lonely rat can easily slip into depression, as they are very social creatures. When it comes to getting rats I typically recommend to get rats in varying ages. If you do get two rats that are the same age try to get a rat that is about a year younger once they are one. If one of the rats passes due to age the rats will still have a companion. Another rat setup would be the naturalistic approach. This has deep soil type bedding that has microfauna that clean the soil preventing you from having to clean the cage weekly. This is something that needs intricate research before trying! Remember that rats required daily cleanup of feces and deep cleaning weekly! I hope this is helpful, enjoy that "pocket sized dog"!
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