The boys House in the Van

We got the ratties whilst we were touring Europe, so their first home was the van, Branden at the very beginning lived in a tiny cage secured on the kitchen worktop, just big enough for him when he was a baby rattie, but after a month he'd out grown it, so we got him a bigger cage, this one I fixed to the cab wall, I got a piece of wood cut to the exact size of the inside of the base's foot mouldings, a couple of shelf brackets, and 2 toggle clips.

The cage comes off it's shelf by releasing the toggle clips, to enable us to clean it out, but it stays where it is at all other times, Both Branden and Noogie aren't bothered by the movement as we drive, and when we are parked up, I leave the top door open so they can gain extra space by climbing onto their cage roof, which handily is positioned next to one of the windows curtain pelmet, so they use the top of the pelmet (which is a piece of ply wood) as a run space.

I used a couple of empty pop bottles with the ends cut off for tubes, Noogie still fits down toilet roll tubes, but branden is too big for them now, so I fixed one tube on the pelmet with both ends cut off, the boys like to use that as a crossing place for some reason, first one to it waits, the other comes along and goes under or over the waiting rat.... inside the tube!

The other tube I cut just one end off, the pelmet ends about 8 inches from the main electrical conduit in the van, so the pop bottle was fixed hanging over the pelmet end, a sort of sky walk tube, Branden likes to sleep in there occasionally, so we've called it his conservatory, the old man has retired to his conservatory for 40 winks :)

There is another window with pelmet the other side of the van to the cage, and I really wanted to allow the boys free access to that one too, I looked into running some ferret tubes across the van to it, but the cost was a bit prohibitive, I considered a wooden platform, but that would have been a bit ungainly, then we came across the ideal medium, guttering.

We went to a diy store whilst we were in Germany, it happened to be one closing down, I saw some nice looking guttering, it's the small diameter stuff for garages and shed roofs, the square profile stuff, and it was a nice coppery colour which we thought would go better with the interior of the van, the nice looking things always have a premium, a 2 meter length of guttering was 16 euros, I had to go round a corner, so a corner piece was 15 euros, and the clips were 5 euros each!! As part of the closing down sale they had reduced everything, guttering had 20% off, making it cheaper but not that cheap, so I left it and thought of other ways to do it, but after seeing that guttering nothing else seemed as good, no way I was having standard grey or poop brown guttering in the van, so a couple of days later we went back to get it, good job we did, as it now had 30% off.

We got the last 2 meter length, and the last corner piece plus a few clips, at the checkout we found out the clips and corner piece had no barcode stickers on them, we'd just been held up at the till for 10 minutes due to another customer with un-bar-coded goods, so the till operator scanned the guttering, and manually put in 2 euros for the corner piece, and said she wasn't going to bother with the clips! so we got the lot for just over 12 euros, Bargain.

I immediately put it up in the van, as you can see from the photo above, it runs just below the over cab locker (where we keep our bedding and tons of other rubbish like an inflatable canoe)  I did want it lower, to be just above the door, but the switch that operates the door was in the way (the black square top right of the door... yes it is an electric door, part of my security, it can't be operated from the cab side without the alarm being off, ignition on, and a hidden switch pressed at the same time)

Here's Branden holding Noogie up in the new run, you can just see at the end of the width of the van, it goes round 90 degrees, then a short length links upto the goal, the pelmet over the other window, now they have triple the run space they did before, that should be fun tonight as they go tearing along it, they seem to like it already, even tho' it was the middle of the day, and I'd woken them up whilst putting it up, and they reluctantly came out to investigate, Noogie liked it so much he left a christening present in it (well 6 of them actually) now I'm glad I didn't use tubes, as they'd need disassembling every to clean the noogie nuggets out... or I'd have to connect them upto the central vacuum system (I am amazed they haven't figured out how to open the flaps to the vacuum tubes of it and disappear down them)

And in the photo below, Noogie is tailgating Branden out of the over cab expressway, both trying to get over their house and onto the runway over the other window,

The cage is one we bought originally for Branden when he outgrew his first little cage, it is small for rats, but it's only where they sleep really, they spend at least 4 to 6 hours out with us every night, plus the top door is always open when were parked up, the cage it's self measures 54cm long, 28cm deep, and 35cm high, and it's got 2 platforms that span half the cage, at home we will get them the biggest cage we can find.

The top yellow platform is their treat floor, their wet food dish is up there (usually containing a little dog food, rice, or any other wet foods we give them as treats), Also up on the treat floor is a couple of baked ratty stick treats, one is egg and cheese, the other is a nutty bar type thing, they also get their bi-daily salads, yoggies, munchy soft centre treats and such like up there)

the blue middle platform is the bathroom, the blue raised thing is Noogie's toilet tray, and Branden's larder, Branden just refuses to use it for it's intended purpose, and stores food in it, Noogie picked up the concept pretty quickly, and does usually turf Branden's food stash out before he takes a dookie in it.... luckily Branden doesn't turf Noogie's nuggets out when he puts his food back in there.

The duck tape around the bars is there to stop them pushing their floor covering, food or ratty raisins through the bars onto Sam, who just happens to sleep the side of the bed that's directly below the cage.

The base has a couple of branden sized tubes, 2 plastic peanut cans with the ends cut off and slotted together, there's also a nugget sized tube, a kitchen roll inner, that's there as branden can't fit down it, so is a hidey place in case branden gets too boisterous, or noogie wants to hide after nicking branden's food.

Then there's the rope perch, it is a parrot perch, Noogie likes it the most, Branden's not fussed about it, except to pull Noogie's tail when it's hanging down in his face whilst he's drinking.

Their water bottle is also available from the base, it's one of the ones with a tapered rod instead of the usual ball bearing spouts, it dose still dribble slightly as were driving, but it's nothing compared to a ball bearing bottle which empties it's self in 20 miles of driving.

Their shared hammock is at the top of the cage, with a new rattie sleeping bag in it (they are wash flannels you put you hand in to scrub your self with, ideal for rattie sleeping bags), Branden has already customized it with a few extra ventilation holes, his last sleeping bag he made an emergency escape hole in the side.

And that's where our ratties live when were out touring in the motorhome.