Rat eating bad things

Question
My girlfriend and I own two fun and crazy female rats roughly 5-7 months old. Our problem is that one of them is a chewer..but not just a chewer. She is an eater too. She chews wires and plastic and basically anything but the crazy part is that she seems to be eating the materials. We provide her with plenty to chew in her home and she gets out at least an hour every day, but she is a serious menace and it makes letting her out a real pain. I don't know how to stop her because as soon as we take one thing away she finds another to eat. For example we had to take a fake plant out of the living room because she was eating it, then when that was gone she started eating canvas bags and hard plastic containers. I have had many rats and know what their chewing habits are like, but I have never had one that eats completely inedible things. Please help!!

Answer
Hi Stephen

Rats will do that. There is really no way to stop it other than keep her in a safe area where she has access to things that are "rat approved" for shredding, gnawing and just totally destroying.

My guys? My son made the mistake of hanging his pricey jacket on the door knob, not thinking the rat cage was right there. Of course, the reached out of the cage and grabbed the sleeve and by morning, his Abercrombie and Fitch hoodie was air conditioned with rattie holes all through the sleeve and around the hood. My son actually liked it, said it was vintage looking...LOL!

Let me just say this from experience and I don't mean to scare you but these are cold hard facts.
Letting rats free range in your home is a recipe for disaster. Just recently, a dear friend watched his beloved rat be electrocuted as she bit through a lamp cord. He thought he had put up every cord but sadly, accidents happen and he forgot one cord that Scampers found. She survived, which was amazing, but her tongue and the inside of her mouth was seriously burned and her little face was swollen 5 times its normal size.  I am happy to say she is recovering fully but this type of thing rarely has a happy ending.  I have seen rats come in the clinic with broken necks, backs, missing tails, severed limbs, all from falls, getting stepped on, getting stuck in something they should not have tried to fit through, etc...
The best way to resolve her chewing and for her safety as well as her cagemates safety is to invest in a pen for them. I have a huge wire playpen that I just spread around the room and it goes from one of the cage to the other (they have a large ferret nation cage) I have toys in there for them, boxes with holes, ping pong balls, paper bags, etc....and of course I sit in there with them and play with them while they climb all over me. I usually just watch television while they run around and play for an hour and often they get tired and go back to their cage on their own.  If they are petite rats chances are they will fit through the spaces of the playpen so you can make your own until they get bigger by using big flat cardboard boxes. Flatten them out and tape them together using heavy duty tape, or if your clever enough, you can cut notches in them and link them like a puzzle. Make sure the cardboard walls are at least 3 feet high so they cant leap over it, but still, always keep them supervised.
I doubt she will grow out of it, but she may. Usually though, there are rats that don't find pleasure in chewing and eating something that doesn't taste good but there are others that have a deep desire just to gnaw and chew. Its a natural instinct really and just one more thing that makes our rats seem more "wild animal" than we tend to realize or rather, we just tend to forget what they really are because they are so smart and easy to train.

Hopefully this has helped you. I know I did not come up with some miracle trick to stop her from chewing but its pretty impossible. You can of course try using a water bottle and spray at her for doing it or you can scare her by making a loud sound with something like a whistle or horn, but she still cant be trusted and you will always have to watch her constantly.  Again that is not my main concern: I just tend to worry about the free range rat running under the refrigerator where they can have a very dangerous accident under there with the wires and motor and all...and so many other things that make our home a danger to these little critters we adore so much.

Have a nice night and thanks for writing!

Sandra