Female rats acting weird

Question
Hey there,

I have two beautiful female rats, they are five months old. I litter trained both girls early on and everything was fine, up until the past week or so. They still use their litterboxes but all of a sudden they've developed an obsession with sleeping in them! I have several hammocks, tubes, empty tissue boxes etc etc which they still use, but they have started sleeping in the litter now.

I can deal with that, rats are funny, but my bigger problem is this: they've started emptying their trays. They'll kick and shovel the litter out, or take it piece by piece in their mouths. It is making a heck of a mess, as lots of it gets kicked out the bars and onto my floor.

There is no pattern to the behaviour: they do it when the trays are clean, or when they're dirty, it doesn't matter. Oh, and it is usually at 2am when I'm trying to sleep LOL!

Nothing has changed in their environment etc, they get let out and played with for the minimum of an hour a day, usually more, and they have plenty of toys and things in their cage (plus its a big cage) so I can't think that it is boredom or something new upsetting them, and I'm just at a loss as to why this has started totally randomly!

Any ideas? Have you heard of this behaviour before? I had a quick look at your website but didn't see anything regarding this type of behaviour, unless i missed it!

Thanks in advance,

Emily :)

Answer
I really truly wish I had an answer....but rats are strange sometimes and do things without any real explanation.  In fact, one of my boys does this too.  He will remove any poops, toss them out of the small litter pan he uses, and will dig and go again. They all use their box like a cat uses her litter pan, too.  What kind of litter do you use in the litter pan?