Chewing
Many rat parents wonder if there is a way to prevent their rats from chewing, either just certain objects, or altogether entirely. Whether inside or outside their cage, many rat parents have found themselves fed up with replacing the items their rats have chewed up over and over again. Pet rats are known to chew up curtains, clothing, hammocks, cage pans, plastic water bottles—I could go on. A glorious day it would be if rats only chewed on designated toys and nesting material. Our ratties chew on just about anything they can get their teeth on, causing a lot of destruction on even seemingly dangerous materials; while a lucky few of us may have a small handful of adult rats who allegedly don’t chew anything. As far as answering this question, I have yet to meet any rat expert who has a straightforward solution.
Let’s examine first why rats chew or gnaw in the first place. There is a far too common myth that rats actually swallow and digest the materials they chew. In an anecdotal compilation book entitled, You’re Never More Than 20 Feet From a Rat, there is a section called, “Facts of Life,” which quotes:
“Rats do not vomit, and so they digest everything. Like all rodents, they need to gnaw, in order to keep their ever-growing incisors filed down.”
Because there is no source cited here, I can only assume that the author wrote this section themselves.
Firstly, it is correct that rats can not vomit, and that their incisors are ever-growing. The word “rodent” actually stems from the latin word rodere, which literally means “to gnaw or corrode.” All rodents have teeth that grow indefinitely, like fingernails. In order to keep their teeth trim, rats will brux, meaning they grind their teeth; as well as chew on hard materials like wood and plastic.
However, this does not automatically mean that everything that goes in their mouths gets ingested and digested. Some rodents, such as chinchillas, will actually swallow materials that they chew. This is why chinchilla parents have cages decorated with wooden and grass-woven furniture and toys. You’ll notice this to be the main difference between a chinchilla cage and rat cage, which is typically clad with colorful plastic and fabric. Rats can chew through wood, hard plastic, cement, and even very thin metal. A rat’s stomach acid would have to be sulfuric in order to digest some of the things that they chew on. Instead, rats have a small but noticeable skin flap on the inside of their mouths, just behind their incisors. When rats are gnawing, this flap of skin closes and separates their teeth from the rest of their mouths. After they have finished their destruction, they spit the material out. Anything that is inedible does not so much as reach the back of their throat, let alone get ingested and ground up into rat poop. This is why we tend not to panic when our rats chew up plastic igloos and metal pipe cleaners. They know these things are not food, so rats chew them up and spit them out, instead of actually eating them.
Although rats tend to keep their own teeth in good condition through bruxing, they do enjoy getting tooth-manicures by chewing. Destroying wood chews, plastic toys, and even your favorite rug, is a great way for rats to stimulate their minds, as well as exercise their jaws. It’s an instinctual behavior that, throughout history, has lead to the demise of quite a handful of towns and villages. Rats can chew through dams and drown villages, and even through electrical wires that cause wildfires to burn small towns.
For the most part, rats chew on objects for the same reason dogs chew on bones and humans chew gum. It’s fun! Any dog parent knows that if you don’t give Rex his chicken flavored Nylabone, he will just find something else to chew up and ruin. The main difference between dogs and rats, however, is that there is an easy solution to stop the dog from destroying your favorite pair of boots. Simply catch the dog in the act, and trade the shoe for an appropriate toy. Problem solved! Rats, on the other hand, are constantly chewing on everything all the time, and they live in a cage instead of running around the house. It’s near impossible to completely redirect their chewing behavior to something more appropriate when you aren’t constantly monitoring them. They had no idea that chewing a big hole in their cage pan and heading straight to the open bag of Oxbow was wrong, because you weren’t there to correct them. I mean, just look at their sweet, innocent faces!
Outside of their cage, rats can be trained not to ruin everything around them if they are being closely monitored. Although they may not quite understand it as well as a dog might, you can teach your rat to chew on a small handful of designated toys instead of the TV remote, as long as you accept the fact that you will probably lose a few buttons in the process. Rats are very fast, so unless you refuse to blink, they will get their mouths on something they’re not supposed to at the first opportunity. Don’t panic just yet, though. There are a few things you can try to keep your rats from ruining your favorite transparent brand-name Nintendo 64 controller.
It is important to remember not to punish a rat for chewing. Rats, just like human babies, like to explore things with their mouths. To punish a rat for chewing is like yelling at a baby for putting a roll of duct tape in their mouth. It wouldn’t make sense to the baby as to why you’re upset, and you’d just be making it cry. Instead, you would make a trade with the baby, handing them a plastic chain-link toy in exchange for the tape. Chewing is an instinctual behavior for rats, and therefore they would not understand why you are being mean to them for doing something nature tells them they have to do. In order to get the message across, you will need to redirect the behavior, rather than trying to put a stop to it altogether.
When your rat is out, no matter how closely you’re watching them, remember to keep all valuable items away from them. Keep your phone charger, your favorite T-Shirt, the blanket your grandmother spent months crocheting for you, and your homework, out of your rat’s reach. If any of these things get ruined, it’d be illogical to blame anyone but yourself. When you catch your rat chewing on something they’re not supposed to, remove the item, or move the rat away from the item, and give her something she’s allowed to chew on in it’s place. Provide her with a piece of cardboard, a wood chew, a plastic baby toy, or a whimzee. If these don’t work, you can easily distract her with her favorite treats. | I recommend having a few various, designated out-of-the-cage toys, so that she knows these are the specific things she’s allowed to chew on.
Most rats hate the smell and taste of peppermint. Peppermint is even commonly used as a natural rodent repellent. For quicker results, you can make certain objects less appealing to the rat using peppermint essential oils or peppermint extract used for baking. Using a rubber glove, simply rub a few drops of peppermint oil on something your rats shouldn’t chew on, such as an electrical cord. Depending on how determined your rat is, this will deter her from wanting to chew on the cord and may eventually cause her to form negative associations with it, making her find the cord unappealing altogether.
As long as you keep a close eye on her, she will eventually get the hint that she is not to chew on things that don’t belong to her. It may take a long time, but eventually as your rat gets older, she will not have as much of an interest in chewing up everything she can touch. She may even learn that there are certain things that are off-limits, such as chargers, clothing, and rugs. At the very least, a rat may simply lose interest in these things as they become more familiar. Many rats, especially males, tend to become more trustworthy outside of their cage as they grow older, as they’ve simply lost the curiosity they had as a baby. Females may be harder to train, since they have a natural instinct to make nests for babies and other family members, and seem to constantly be searching for new things they can shred up and add to their nests.
Keeping rats from chewing on things inside their cage is a whole other ballgame. It can be possible to redirect the behavior if you keep lots of stimulating and fun toys in their cage. However, it’s important to bear in mind that your rat cage ultimately belongs to your rats, not to you. If you don’t want it to get ruined, it probably shouldn’t be in their cage. This goes for hammocks, fleece liners, and even cage pans. There are many things you can do to attempt to redirect the behavior, but there’s still no guarantee it will work.
If your rats are chewing hammocks and fleece liners, it may be time to find a new solution such as loose bedding and plastic baskets. You can try to place lots of fleece scraps in their hammocks and igloos to distract them from chewing up the hammocks and liners themselves, but this isn’t a solution. Rather, it is just an attempt to preserve your expensive handmade cage accessories for a little bit longer.
As far as cage pans, igloos, litter boxes, and other things you don’t want your rats to chew up, you can try to redirect their chewing to fun, stimulating toys. If your rats have a tendency to chew on the corners of the plastic cage pans, you can try to place an interesting hanging wood chew in the corner in hopes that your rat finds this more fun than the plastic. Most likely, however, she is chewing the corner because she thinks it may create a hole that she can navigate through. Rats are burrowing animals, so perhaps adding a tunnel, a dig box, or a hideaway stuffed with nesting material may work even better.
Apart from this, there’s not much you can do in the way of preventing your rats from chewing things inside their cage. So, my best advice is to maintain a fun and interesting cage setup. Provide your rats with lots of toys they can chew, shred, bury, carry around, etc. that are much more fun than everything else in their cage. Things like tissue paper, newspaper, cardboard, wood chews, bird perches, lava ledges, wooden ladders, whimzees, and hemp cord; are all great choices for toys that are much more interesting than the straps on your new favorite hammock. If you can manage to keep your rats entertained and pay attention to the things they chew on, you may be able to prolong the life of the not-so-replaceable items in your cage.
It is impossible to prevent a rat from chewing altogether. Again, they may lose interest on their own as they get older, but it’s just not practicable to ask a rat not to do something that is so vital to them. It is objectively superficial and selfish of us to assume that just because we paid a lot of money for a handmade 5-piece hammock set, the rats won’t chew it up; even though it’s in their cage and now belongs to them. Ultimately, we need to learn to adapt to our rats’ way of life. Humans are constantly trying to find new ways to make our pets adapt to our lifestyles, even though they did not ask to live with us in the first place. We teach our dogs not to bark at strangers and our cats not to claw our furniture. Sometimes, we need to take a step back from ourselves and try to adapt to our pets, not the other way around. We can do our best to prevent our rats from chewing on cords or putting holes in the clothes we’re wearing, but ultimately, the most effective way to get this job done is to put our phone chargers in a drawer and not wear designer jeans when the rats are out. Rats have spent decades adapting to our way of life by building their own habitats around ours. The least we owe our pet rats is acceptance of the fact that they chew things.
Let’s examine first why rats chew or gnaw in the first place. There is a far too common myth that rats actually swallow and digest the materials they chew. In an anecdotal compilation book entitled, You’re Never More Than 20 Feet From a Rat, there is a section called, “Facts of Life,” which quotes:
“Rats do not vomit, and so they digest everything. Like all rodents, they need to gnaw, in order to keep their ever-growing incisors filed down.”
Because there is no source cited here, I can only assume that the author wrote this section themselves.
Firstly, it is correct that rats can not vomit, and that their incisors are ever-growing. The word “rodent” actually stems from the latin word rodere, which literally means “to gnaw or corrode.” All rodents have teeth that grow indefinitely, like fingernails. In order to keep their teeth trim, rats will brux, meaning they grind their teeth; as well as chew on hard materials like wood and plastic.
However, this does not automatically mean that everything that goes in their mouths gets ingested and digested. Some rodents, such as chinchillas, will actually swallow materials that they chew. This is why chinchilla parents have cages decorated with wooden and grass-woven furniture and toys. You’ll notice this to be the main difference between a chinchilla cage and rat cage, which is typically clad with colorful plastic and fabric. Rats can chew through wood, hard plastic, cement, and even very thin metal. A rat’s stomach acid would have to be sulfuric in order to digest some of the things that they chew on. Instead, rats have a small but noticeable skin flap on the inside of their mouths, just behind their incisors. When rats are gnawing, this flap of skin closes and separates their teeth from the rest of their mouths. After they have finished their destruction, they spit the material out. Anything that is inedible does not so much as reach the back of their throat, let alone get ingested and ground up into rat poop. This is why we tend not to panic when our rats chew up plastic igloos and metal pipe cleaners. They know these things are not food, so rats chew them up and spit them out, instead of actually eating them.
Although rats tend to keep their own teeth in good condition through bruxing, they do enjoy getting tooth-manicures by chewing. Destroying wood chews, plastic toys, and even your favorite rug, is a great way for rats to stimulate their minds, as well as exercise their jaws. It’s an instinctual behavior that, throughout history, has lead to the demise of quite a handful of towns and villages. Rats can chew through dams and drown villages, and even through electrical wires that cause wildfires to burn small towns.
For the most part, rats chew on objects for the same reason dogs chew on bones and humans chew gum. It’s fun! Any dog parent knows that if you don’t give Rex his chicken flavored Nylabone, he will just find something else to chew up and ruin. The main difference between dogs and rats, however, is that there is an easy solution to stop the dog from destroying your favorite pair of boots. Simply catch the dog in the act, and trade the shoe for an appropriate toy. Problem solved! Rats, on the other hand, are constantly chewing on everything all the time, and they live in a cage instead of running around the house. It’s near impossible to completely redirect their chewing behavior to something more appropriate when you aren’t constantly monitoring them. They had no idea that chewing a big hole in their cage pan and heading straight to the open bag of Oxbow was wrong, because you weren’t there to correct them. I mean, just look at their sweet, innocent faces!
Outside of their cage, rats can be trained not to ruin everything around them if they are being closely monitored. Although they may not quite understand it as well as a dog might, you can teach your rat to chew on a small handful of designated toys instead of the TV remote, as long as you accept the fact that you will probably lose a few buttons in the process. Rats are very fast, so unless you refuse to blink, they will get their mouths on something they’re not supposed to at the first opportunity. Don’t panic just yet, though. There are a few things you can try to keep your rats from ruining your favorite transparent brand-name Nintendo 64 controller.
It is important to remember not to punish a rat for chewing. Rats, just like human babies, like to explore things with their mouths. To punish a rat for chewing is like yelling at a baby for putting a roll of duct tape in their mouth. It wouldn’t make sense to the baby as to why you’re upset, and you’d just be making it cry. Instead, you would make a trade with the baby, handing them a plastic chain-link toy in exchange for the tape. Chewing is an instinctual behavior for rats, and therefore they would not understand why you are being mean to them for doing something nature tells them they have to do. In order to get the message across, you will need to redirect the behavior, rather than trying to put a stop to it altogether.
When your rat is out, no matter how closely you’re watching them, remember to keep all valuable items away from them. Keep your phone charger, your favorite T-Shirt, the blanket your grandmother spent months crocheting for you, and your homework, out of your rat’s reach. If any of these things get ruined, it’d be illogical to blame anyone but yourself. When you catch your rat chewing on something they’re not supposed to, remove the item, or move the rat away from the item, and give her something she’s allowed to chew on in it’s place. Provide her with a piece of cardboard, a wood chew, a plastic baby toy, or a whimzee. If these don’t work, you can easily distract her with her favorite treats. | I recommend having a few various, designated out-of-the-cage toys, so that she knows these are the specific things she’s allowed to chew on.
Most rats hate the smell and taste of peppermint. Peppermint is even commonly used as a natural rodent repellent. For quicker results, you can make certain objects less appealing to the rat using peppermint essential oils or peppermint extract used for baking. Using a rubber glove, simply rub a few drops of peppermint oil on something your rats shouldn’t chew on, such as an electrical cord. Depending on how determined your rat is, this will deter her from wanting to chew on the cord and may eventually cause her to form negative associations with it, making her find the cord unappealing altogether.
As long as you keep a close eye on her, she will eventually get the hint that she is not to chew on things that don’t belong to her. It may take a long time, but eventually as your rat gets older, she will not have as much of an interest in chewing up everything she can touch. She may even learn that there are certain things that are off-limits, such as chargers, clothing, and rugs. At the very least, a rat may simply lose interest in these things as they become more familiar. Many rats, especially males, tend to become more trustworthy outside of their cage as they grow older, as they’ve simply lost the curiosity they had as a baby. Females may be harder to train, since they have a natural instinct to make nests for babies and other family members, and seem to constantly be searching for new things they can shred up and add to their nests.
Keeping rats from chewing on things inside their cage is a whole other ballgame. It can be possible to redirect the behavior if you keep lots of stimulating and fun toys in their cage. However, it’s important to bear in mind that your rat cage ultimately belongs to your rats, not to you. If you don’t want it to get ruined, it probably shouldn’t be in their cage. This goes for hammocks, fleece liners, and even cage pans. There are many things you can do to attempt to redirect the behavior, but there’s still no guarantee it will work.
If your rats are chewing hammocks and fleece liners, it may be time to find a new solution such as loose bedding and plastic baskets. You can try to place lots of fleece scraps in their hammocks and igloos to distract them from chewing up the hammocks and liners themselves, but this isn’t a solution. Rather, it is just an attempt to preserve your expensive handmade cage accessories for a little bit longer.
As far as cage pans, igloos, litter boxes, and other things you don’t want your rats to chew up, you can try to redirect their chewing to fun, stimulating toys. If your rats have a tendency to chew on the corners of the plastic cage pans, you can try to place an interesting hanging wood chew in the corner in hopes that your rat finds this more fun than the plastic. Most likely, however, she is chewing the corner because she thinks it may create a hole that she can navigate through. Rats are burrowing animals, so perhaps adding a tunnel, a dig box, or a hideaway stuffed with nesting material may work even better.
Apart from this, there’s not much you can do in the way of preventing your rats from chewing things inside their cage. So, my best advice is to maintain a fun and interesting cage setup. Provide your rats with lots of toys they can chew, shred, bury, carry around, etc. that are much more fun than everything else in their cage. Things like tissue paper, newspaper, cardboard, wood chews, bird perches, lava ledges, wooden ladders, whimzees, and hemp cord; are all great choices for toys that are much more interesting than the straps on your new favorite hammock. If you can manage to keep your rats entertained and pay attention to the things they chew on, you may be able to prolong the life of the not-so-replaceable items in your cage.
It is impossible to prevent a rat from chewing altogether. Again, they may lose interest on their own as they get older, but it’s just not practicable to ask a rat not to do something that is so vital to them. It is objectively superficial and selfish of us to assume that just because we paid a lot of money for a handmade 5-piece hammock set, the rats won’t chew it up; even though it’s in their cage and now belongs to them. Ultimately, we need to learn to adapt to our rats’ way of life. Humans are constantly trying to find new ways to make our pets adapt to our lifestyles, even though they did not ask to live with us in the first place. We teach our dogs not to bark at strangers and our cats not to claw our furniture. Sometimes, we need to take a step back from ourselves and try to adapt to our pets, not the other way around. We can do our best to prevent our rats from chewing on cords or putting holes in the clothes we’re wearing, but ultimately, the most effective way to get this job done is to put our phone chargers in a drawer and not wear designer jeans when the rats are out. Rats have spent decades adapting to our way of life by building their own habitats around ours. The least we owe our pet rats is acceptance of the fact that they chew things.