Otis as a baby again.
The little cage is aquarium style. Never intended to keep even one fully grown rat in, but good for tiny ones, due to the bar spacing on the big cage.
They're two grown up boys, and are only "banished" to the little cage for the weekly deep clean.
They have a little wicker house at the top of the cage (which is the size of a small wardrobe). I expected them to use it as a hideaway from eachother, but one or both use it to sleep in. That and the "tunnel" hung from the cage roof.
In the basement there is a large moving box, which they have chewed exit holes into and out of, and in there is a proper plastic rat pod, easily large enough to sleep in. I put the box in there to protect their feet - they can get a condition called bumblefoot if they spend time on wire - and to prevent escape attempts when it was touch and go whether their bodies were wider than the bars. I've kept it because they like it, and they've never soiled it, except their dry scat, which I clean up obviously. Rat urine smells horribly, but they use a litter tray for that.
Critters rarely use the things you buy as you expected to. I have to empty the pod of hidden food in my daily clean, and it's always in a different place, or turned turtle. It's the site of their nightly scuffles.
Still, as you can see they do get on peaceably.
I only intended to get Duncan, but the rat expert in my local petshop (and internet reading) made me understand that rats should not live alone. They will scuffle, squeal and try to be Top Rat, but if no blood is drawn (and it never has been) then it's just playing.
So, two rats squeezed in a little space.
And two rats woken by the sound of the camera, sleepy but expecting a mealworm each and wondering if it's time for strokes and a run around my shoulders.
