How Often Do You Need To Clean A Rat Cage

Keeping your rats' cage clean, odor-free and comfy requires some regular cleaning activities. In contrast to what many people believe about rats, they are actually very clean animals. They spend almost 30% of their active time grooming and cleaning themselves. But they need our help in keeping their home sparkling!

How often to clean the rat cage?

Some basic things should be done on a daily basis while a detailed thorough cleaning should be done once a week. This will ensure your rats are living in a healthy area, being their happy selves.

Table of Contents

Why regularly cleaning the rat cage is essential
Important rat cage cleaning tips
Daily cleaning activities
Weekly cleaning activities
- Empty the cage
- Clean the cage
- Disinfect the cage
- Clean the food bowl and the water bottle
- Clean the toys and accessories
- Return everything to the cage
How to get rid of rat urine smell
Conclusion

Why regularly cleaning the rat cage is essential

When rats pee, bacteria starts to turn the urine into ammonia. Inhaling ammonia makes the rats prone to respiratory illness. This is the same reason why I favor metal cages over wooden ones as wood soaks up rat pee while the metal cage can be easily cleaned. See my list of recommended rat cages.

There is often bacteria on rat feces in their litter and bedding which is also unhealthy for them if inhaled or ingested.

Rat cages start to smell very bad if not cleaned often enough. And as rats have much better sense of smell than us human, we can only imagine how they feel living in a smelly place – I'd say they are not very happy!

Important rat cage cleaning tips

have a secondary small cage where you'll keep the rats while you clean
put the rats in another room so that they don't inhale cleaning products while you clean
don't use perfumed cleaners as rats are sensitive to that kind of things
try to do the cleaning outdoors or in a well-ventilated area. If that is not possible, then leave the doors and windows open while you clean.
if you have a sick rat, make sure to disinfect the cage thoroughly
rinse, rinse and rinse… make sure all the cleaning products are gone!

Daily cleaning activities

Make sure to do this every day to keep your rats happy. They don't like to live among their own poop just like we don't.

Daily activities include:

Replace the soiled litter with new litter
Remove the poops around the cage if there are any
Replace the bedding soaked with pee or full of poops
Get rid of any leftover food in the bowl or around the cage to prevent bacteria growth
Replace the water
Sniff all the cloth items and accessories in the cage and if there is any unpleasant smell, wash them in the washing machine with a unscented and hypo-allergenic laundry detergent
You can quickly wipe the cage with fragrance-free baby wipes or wet wipe but it is not required to do this every day

Weekly cleaning activities

Disinfecting and cleaning rat cage

Weekly cleaning is a bit more thorough than daily cleaning and will probably take about 30-45 minutes of your time.

What you'll need:

Dish soap such as Dawn hypoallergenic soap or a cleaning product such as Nature's Miracle Cage Cleaner
Scrub brush and sponge
anti-bacterial spray such as a pet-safe spray from ProVetLogic
unscented and hypo-allergenic laundry detergent (I like this one)

Empty the cage

Remove all toys and accessories from the cage
throw away litter and dirty bedding (but keep 2 poops, I'll explain later why you'll need them)
put the rats in their temporary cage

Clean the cage

The cleaning process is easiest to do outdoors or in the bath / shower. If you have a large cage and this is not an option for you, you can do it in the room where the cage is located, but have something water-resistant under and around the cage so your floor doesn't get wet.

spray the cage with warm water so the residue softens which will make the cleaning easier
prepare a bucket filled with water and a dish wash such as the mentioned Dawn soap or use a cleaning product such as Nature's Miracle Cage Cleaner
soak the sponge and clean the cage
use a scrub brush to thoroughly clean the residue
rinse it well and do it a few times to make sure no soap is left

After you've cleaned the cage with a cleaning product, the next step is to disinfect it.

Disinfect the cage

Disinfecting the cage should be done at least twice a month. You should also disinfect it if you're introducing a new rat or if your rat is sick. Many people use bleach and water solution to disinfect the cage because the bleach is a strong disinfectant but it can also be harmful to the rat's sensitive respiratory system. I prefer to use an anti-bacterial spray.

Disinfecting routine:

spray the cage with an anti-bacterial spray such as the mentioned pet-safe spray
depending on the product you use to disinfect, it will probably be labeled how long you should leave the spray to do its job (mostly it is 10 minutes minimum)
thoroughly scrub and rinse the cage
smell the cage and check if you can sense any residual cleaning solution. If there is any smell left, rinse once more to get rid of it.
preferably let the cage air dry in the sun (which helps to kill all organisms) or towel dry the cage

Clean the food bowl and the water bottle

wash food bowl and water bottle in a hot water with a dish detergent
rinse it well and let it air dry
you can put food bowl and water bottle in a dishwasher but make sure to rinse them again even after the dishwasher to make sure all detergent is washed away

Clean the toys and accessories

wash any cloth items such as hammocks and fabric bedding in a washing machine with an unscented and hypo-allergenic laundry detergent
dry the items in the dryer for at least 20 minutes or let them air dry

Return everything to the cage

When the cage is dry, decorate it with freshly washed toys and accessories
Put new litter and bedding
Put 2 poops in the litter to avoid rats' excessive marking a.k.a. peeing and pooping everywhere

How to get rid of rat urine smell

We both know how unpleasant a rat urine smell can be. But it won't be much of a problem anymore after following these tips.

How to keep rat cage from smelling:

regularly clean the rat cage as I explained above
use white vinegar or deodorizer to clean the cage and to neutralize rat urine
use the cage with coated wires – uncoated wires can pick up the smell of urine
train the rats to use the litter box to do their business
avoid cages with a mesh floor and pull out pans

Be careful about the white vinegar as some rats can be sensitive to its strong smell. If your rats act strangely after you use white vinegar on their cage, stop using it and use an unscented deodorizer instead.

Also read: Rat cage setup ideas & tips to encourage activity

Conclusion

Remember that rat's sense of smell is much much stronger than ours (they can even smell tuberculosis and landmines) and something that's a small bother to us is unbearable to them. So even if the cage doesn't always seem to smell bad, it needs to be regularly cleaned. The cleaning activities that I listed are all you need to do to make sure your rats live in a clean and healthy area, living a happy life!

How do you clean your rats' cage? And how often?

Let me know in the comments!