A Rat Toy Treat Idea...Please read!?
I have 4 new rats and it looks like they are really happy in there new home. I have lot's of toys, climbing opportunities and so on for them but there was one toy they didn't play with so I have taken it out and decided to Make a toy. My idea was that I put a treat in a small ball that's edible so they can gnaw their way into the treat.(this will also keep there teeth healthy) But I don't know what to make the ball out of. Any Ideas would be great !!!
I have a toy just like this for my rats that I purchased at a pet store. It is a bunch of short wooden dowels crossed over each other to create a ball with enough space in the center for a nut. The rats can see and smell the nut but they can't quite get at it so they like to gnaw at the wood. I'm guessing that you could make something like it with Popsicle sticks, or purchase some wooden dowels at a craft or hardware store.
You could also make one out of willow branches. Take some fresh willow branches while they are still flexible and weave them around some treats to create a ball. Wait for the branches to dry and give it to the rats.
I've added some links below of a few commercial toys that you could probably make yourself. The first link is the toy that I mentioned which I own.

If Actions is What Makes Us Human, Why Don't We Let Kids Do It?(Also a worthy peruse is the sidebar, “Evolution of play: unsupervised bat and ball to today's screens”). One researcher found call attention to — a lack of it, actually — was a common denominator in the swarms murderers he had been studying.









