Finding A Play Area For Your Rats If you're going to own rats, you are going to need a safe place to enjoy playing with them. The larger the area, the more fun you and your rats will have. Some people will use counter tops/tables. This can be an easy location to find in most homes. These areas are easy to rat proof and easy to clean up. Unfortunately this can be a dangerous choice if one of your rats accidentally falls off or gets knocked off to the floor. Your rats could get seriously hurt if that happens. Some people will use their couch or a large stuffed chair. Most rats will naturally stay on the couch/chair as long as you don't show them how to get down to the floor, or let them crawl up on it from the floor. Unlike other small animals, rats will not blindly jump off an edge. If they don't know how far down the floor is below them, they will not jump and take the risk of falling a long way. Throw an old blanket over the couch/chair to protect it from poop/pee, plus the blanket will help keep your rats from wiggling in under the cushions. Some people will use there bed, much in the same way as the couch works. Hallways that can be blocked off can sometimes make good play areas. Some people will build a large play pen to let their rats play in. You can hinge together large pieces of smooth press board to form a giant 4-6 sided play pen, which you can then set up in any room of the house were you have have the space to do so. The pen should be at least 4' high to keep your rats from jumping over it. Ideally, you will want to convert an entire room into a rat safe play area. We use to use our bedroom for this. This will give you much more space to set up toys and have fun. One room that almost always works well for a play area in any home is the bathroom. Bathrooms are easy to rat proof and easy to clean, but can sometimes be a little too cramped. The dream of all dreams for you and your rats is if you can provide your rats with their own private room. This is something that we are lucky enough to do here at RattyRat and it is absolutely fabulous! Giving your rats their own room makes everything ultra convenient and easy. Plus there is no fear of them wrecking anything since everything in the room is theirs. There are some people who give their rats free range of the entire house. We personally do not agree with this. It is extremely dangerous for the rats. They can easily be stepped on, shut in doors, work their way outside, pull a heavy or dangerous item down on top of themselves, get caught up in the inner workings of a piece of furniture, get sat on, chew on a cord and become electrocuted, eat toxic substances, get trapped someplace and suffocate or drown, you name it. There is no way to make your entire house safe for your rats. We here at RattyRat do take our rats, individually, on walks through the house as an enrichment exercise, but these are very closely supervised walks on a leash. Once you have decided on a play area, you then need to make it safe for your rats to play in. See "Rat Proofing Your Play Area" for more information. Miscellaneous... Rats should be brought out to play EVERY day for at least a half hour or more preferably for an entire hour. It is important that your rats have access to their home, a small travel cage, or a litter pan while playing in their play area. They need this as a place to go to the bathroom. Be sure to put lots of toys in their play area for them to play with. Try and change it up a little every day with different items, or by arranging things differently. Always supervise your rats closely when they are out for play time. This is when accidents are most likely to happen. If you are lucky enough to have a whole room for your rats to play in, it is a good idea to still have some play dates with your rats in closer quarters, like on a big stuffed chair. We discovered that the one on one intimacy of such close quarters really helps the bonding process with your rats. For several hours every night I sit in my living room chair with my rats curled up sleeping on my chest under my shirt as I watch evening TV or read a book. An easy way to gather all your rats back up into their home when play time is over, is to offer them their fruits/veggies at this time. They will quickly learn to come right to their home for their yummy reward. Here, my husband coaxes Mojo and Jojo to return to their cage by using a grape.