All 40 something of my rats are trained! Well at least litter trained. Some of the tricks my rats know: basketball, agility courses (like ones for dogs), rescuing a doll from a building, jumping rope, catch, etc. Rats are very easy to train! For more info on training, check out these websites. I am also the founder of the Rat Fanciers Association of Oregon, and we will have a website up shortly with training ideas and tips. We are planning our first show in February of 2003! We still need people to help oraganize so if anyone lives in Oregon or Washington and wants to lend a helping hand email me. Oh yes, the links, lol!


Rat Fan Club they will give you all sort of tips for training your rats.
Desert Sands Rattery lots of info to help get training off to a good startagility training

There are many clubs online you can join that are dedicated to rats. Yahoo has plenty!

Rats are easy to litter train also. I use a combination of aspen pellets and carefresh (make sure if you use Carefresh you stick it in the freezer for a day to kill mites- has been known to carry mites) and stick this in a litter box. If you have a Martins Cage the litter box should fit fine. If you have a smaller cage you can use a Kleenex box and cut the hole a little bigger. Just keep on scooping the poops up and putting them inside the box, doing this several times a day keeping the rest of the cage clean. It will take them a few days to catch on. Some rats will only urinate or deficate in the box, doing the other bathroom chore somewhere else in the cage. In other words, one can poop in the box but prefers to pee in the cage. Do NOT use glavanized wire for bucks. Thier urine corodes the iron away and can lead to zinc poisoning!


Grass is a grat idea! My rats have a "digging" box. They have one full of grass and soil and another one with toilet paper shreds. They love it. Make sure you use gardeners soil. Do not use the soil from your backyard as this harbors nasty parasites you do not want your rat to have. And make sure if you use a plant it is ratty safe.