How To Make Rat Hammocks

Hi, my name's Marie. I'm the deputy manager of the Small Animal Department at Wood Green Animal Shelters and I'm going to tell you how to care for rats. I'm going to tell you how to make a rat hammock.

Rat hammocks can be really easy to make. You can just save any old materials that you've got around from the house. A really good idea is to go to a local jumble sale because you can pick up whole jumpers and sheets and towels for a few pennies.

So, collect a few materials that you like. You can make really simple one just made from one cheap material or you can make really cool ones like these which is all fleece lined as well. All you do with these is get a couple of bit of some material, you can stitch this on the inside of your machine and you've got a nice thick material that will hang up.

These ones obviously tend to last a little bit longer and you can wash these quite easily. You can then add on some material tabs and these are simply hooks from key rings, so place 4 of these on the corners and then you can get hooks like these which are available in most pet shops and on the internet. And they're just cage hooks so you could just place them inside there and hang them from the cage as these three rats right here are demonstrating very well.

So as I mentioned, the easiest way to make a hammock is to get a square of material, get a pair of scissors and just cut a line 2 or 3 inches down in all four corners. Then, all you need to do is just tie the 4 corners into your rat cage. Obviously, it's a great idea.

You can have them at different lengths, again, as all of these homemade hammocks demonstrate. So this one, I'm going to tie from the top, thread the material through, you might need to pull a little bit more to give it more room to tie. It's best really if you can do 2 or 3 knots to make it really strong as obviously some rats can be fairly heavy.

And that's how to create a simple rat hammock and as you can see, these girls are going to have lots and lots of fun with it. When you are choosing materials, you could also consider using some children's bedding or dog beds which are quite spongy, and again, you could add simple hooks like this to the corners and that will make a really cozy little hammock or a material tunnel hanging from the top. So, go to your local car boot sales, charity shops, and have a little look around, find some more materials and you just want to get a few either hooks like these or key ring hooks and they're really easy, or make a simple one like that and just cut the corners.

And that's how to make a rat hammock. .