Having a pet rat is a wonderful experience and to make sure your rat lives a full healthy life, picking the right bedding is essential. There are several types of cage bedding that you should not use, for instance Cedar bedding can cause respiratory problems for rats and should not be used. Listed here are five types of bedding that you can use.
Cloth
Cloth or torn fabric diapers make excellent bedding for rats. The thing you have to be careful of when using cloth is to make sure there aren’t any strings hanging off the ends of the cloth pieces. Strings can get wrapped around your rats feet, toes or get stuck in their throat. Cloth is great because you can cut up as much of it as you need and then put it in the washing machine when it gets dirty and just use it again after it’s been cleaned.
The best detergent to use is a hypoallergenic laundry detergent in warm water. You should not use any perfumes or fabric softeners, they can cause respiratory problems for your rat. Using cloth is also good if your rat is allergic to other types of bedding.
CareFresh Bedding
CareFresh is made from paper pulp and comes in several colors as well as gray. This bedding is a little more expensive than pine and cedar bedding but it’s worth the price and it isn’t as likely to cause respiratory problems.
Shredded Paper
Shredded paper bedding works very well, but in order for it to be safe for your rat you must make sure the ink is non-toxic. This type of bedding is mostly best for darker colored rats, as a light colored rat will have the ink rub off on him making him look dirty.
Also with shredded paper, the bedding will have to be changed more often as it will soak up any urine and become a mushy mess quite easily. Letting the shredded paper stay wet may lead to it getting moldy and making your rat sick, so it’s imperative that the wet paper is removed from the cage.
Pellet Bedding
Pellet bedding comes in many forms and many rats will have no problems with it. One of the types of pellet bedding on the market is yesterdaysnews. It is marketed as a cat litter but it works well for rats. The only problem with this is your rat may not like the hard pellets to lay on, in that case you will want to put a different kind of bedding where he sleeps.
Papertowels and Napkins
Shredded papertowels or napkins work very well, as long as they are free of dyes and perfumes. If your rat is a nursing mother, this type of bedding will not harm her babies and will be nice and soft.
Whatever bedding you choose, make sure your rat likes it. If he starts sneezing or has respiratory problems from the dust in some bedding, seek veterinary advice at once. When buying bagged bedding such as CareFresh or Pellet Bedding, it’s wise to put the bags of bedding in your freezer for at least twelve hours because mites and other small insects have been known to hide in the bags.
Putting the bags in the freezer will assure that if there were any insects in the bedding, they are dead before you use the product.
