Pet Information > ASK Experts > Exotic Pets > Pet Rats > Food dishes...

Food dishes...

21 17:22:21

Question
Hi I own 2 female rats and I'm curious to know why every time I fill up their food dish one of them dumps it completely over. They do it every single time I feed them. I thought maybe they didn't like the dish, so I changed it lol. But after 4 different dishes I'm thinkin it might not be that. Are they hiding it? Lol I'm completely clueless!  :)

Answer
Why do they do this? ......because.....they can.  LOL

I have had rats do this and solved it by buying a double dish used for cats. It had an open slot on each side so I fed a zip tie through the cage into the side slot of the dish and they could not dumb it any more. Of course now that its attached to the side of the cage its a pain to feed them, if you use veggies etc...you have to wipe it out all the time without taking it out, but its worth it rather than have them make a huge mess all the time.   Also, you can buy bird food dishes that have two metal hooks that you can hang on the side of the cage.  They can sit on the side of the dish and eat and unless the crawl under the dish and push up on it, they cant knock it down, either.