All the fences on this page are more difficult fences for the advanced classes, but we often use at least one of them even in a beginners class, to get some variety.
If you use a hammer and some nails instead of a drill and some screws to build the agility fences you will not be able to safely transport them to and from competitions. They will break. This we learned the hard way, there's no use that you make the same fault. A saw made to use with wood, a drill, some screws (not too few), sandpaper, glue made to use with wood, non-toxic water-resistant paint and lots of imagination is what you do need to make good agility fences.
Using both glue and screws to attatch all pieces together makes the best fences.
Any rat need some training on the more complicated fences to be able to tackle any of them.
Here is a photo of a seesaw-fence and my pet rat Ixy. The rat has to walk up on the end of the long piece of wood, and walk upwards on it towards the other end. Half-way over the fence will flip over and the rat will walk downwards. The rat has to walk (or run) the whole way, or it has to restart this fence.
This kind of fence is actually a contact fence, it should have a contact zone in each end, where the rat has to put at least one of its paws.
It is not as hard to build this fence as it might look. It is made in two pieces that must fit together, but they are not attached to eachother. The lower piece is made exactly as the first jumping fence on this page - in this case the first simple jumping fence there is the lower piece of the seesaw-fence in the photo showing this seesaw-fence and my pet rat Ixy. It has to be rather low and the top round piece is very important for that is what the top piece is balancing on top of.
The top piece of the fence is long and flat and is made of 3 pieces of wood; one long and flat and two tiny pieces on the underside. The hard thing is to find the middle of the long piece and place two smaller pieces of wood on either side of the middle on the underside of the long piece of wood.
Sonja Cygnel invented, buildt and painted both these seesaw-fences. She also had very good agility rats!
These fences are at least 45 or 50 cm long. The difficuly here is to train the rat to stay on the fence when it flips over, most rats just jumps off before they are used to this kind of fence.
This is a photo of an up-and-down-fence. The rat is supposed to get over the first round piece of wood, under the next and over the next, and so on. Up and down and up and down. I made this fence, but I didn't make the drawings on the sides.
You need two big pieces of wood and several rounded pieces of the same size. I buildt this fence.
Here is a front view of this nice up-and-down-fence, as you can see here it is very easy for the rat to just walk under the fence instead of taking it, so the rat need to be very good at agility! Many difficult fences like this is what is needed in higher classes of agility.
If I remeber correctly this fence is about 25 cm wide, it needs to be big since even a big male shall have a chance to tackle it.
This is a photo of the famous Ippe-fence so named after my pet rat Ippe who just loved this fence. I believe this is the original Ippe-fence that Ippe loved so much.
This fence is made by 4 small rektangular pieces of wood and 3 round pieces. The fence is supposed to be open with an opening big enough so the rat can go through it. It is a jumping fence, so the rat is supposed to get over the fence, not through it at competition. But it can be used in either way as long as that is decided before the competition starts. The rat has to follow the directions from it's owner in order to make it in the agility world!
Here are 2 newly buildt and painted Ippe-fences that I made since people liked them and wanted them so much.
I've just been told that this fence now is famous all over Sweden... Rat owners are building their own Ippe-fences and naming them Ippe-fences... (Ippe was a very special rat and also very popular rat.)
The Ippe-fence is about 20 cm wide, just as most the other jumping fences.
Here's another fence I have buildt, inspired from the world of showjumping for horses. It is the one in the front in this photo. I don't have a nice English name for this type of fence so if anyone has one, please send it to me! In Swedish we call it the "kryss-hinder" (hinder=fence). The shape of an X is called a "kryss" in Swedish. Maybe I should just call it the X-fence, since the bars makes such a nice big X.
This is a difficult jumping fence, since it is rather large and the rat can easily get through it anywhere if the owner is unclear in his/her instructions to the rat.
This fence is abit wider than the other jumping fences, since it must allow even a big male to get through it. Maybe 25 cm wide, or so.
Here is a balance-fence, it is made from a 2 cm thick plank and 2 small pieces of wood, one in each end. The rat is supposed to walk or run along it from one end to the other. The rat has to take this fence in the right direction and if the rat jumps off before it has finished it has to go back and start anew.
As you can see in the next photo I got a bit excited and even painted the side-pieces...
Here is a photo of 2 balance-fences, the one to the right is the same as the one above, but the photo is taken from the other side. The fence to the left is a much harder fence, since it is a round bar to walk or run along. Rats are very good at this sort of thing, though, so even young rats manage this fairly well.
Both these fences are rather large, since the idea is that the rat has to balance for a while, not just jump over the fence. They are at least 40 cm long.
Here's a pretty table. This table is buildt from several smaller pieces, that's why there are small pieces sticking out underneath. You only need 5 pieces of wood to make a table, 4 legs and a flat top. The table has to be high enough to let a big male easily creep under it, so it gets hard enough. This table-fence is about 20 cm long and 10 cm high.
The table works as the table in dog agility, the rat has to be still on it for a short while and not jump down until the owner orders it to.
A long jump-fence is buildt from three pieces of wood, 2 big blocks of wood and a long flat piece underneath. It is important to have something underneath that holds the blocks together so that they cannot glide apart and cause the rat to hurt itself when jumping. The distance between the blocks of wood is not supposed to be great, only so big as it needs to be in order for a big rat not to able to just take a step over.
This fence is about 30 cm long.
A special-fence is buildt from five pieces of wood, one big and thin and 4 triangular small bars. I found a bunch of these little triangular wooden bars and no idea of what to do whit them until I came to think about those fences they have for dogs, with a tire to jump through. I used a drill to make some holes in the big piece of wood and then a small saw that I was able to lend from a friend, to make those round holes. It is important that even a big fat male can get through the holes!
This is just a photo of the back sides of the fences above. Well, who knows what is the front side and what is the back sides - I don't and I made them!
The hole in the middle of these fences are about 10 cm in diameter.
Copyright and written by Eva Johansson.
Last update: 11th of August 2006.