Problematic intro

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Ttt

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Jan 29, 2017
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Hi

I'm having trouble with an introduction and hope you have advice about what I should do.

I have a male rat who's 1.4 years old
His buddy passed away and I got him two 5 week old babies last Saturday.

I introduced them on the bed and my male acted very friendly with them but they were terrified of him and especially one of them would stand with an open mouth ready to bite everytime my older boy came close.

I decided not to move them into the big cage that day. Instead the next day I did intros in the carrier where they were forced to be close and this helped a lot with the little ones being afraid. They got more and more relaxed around my boy.

Then we moved on to the bed again but then my male started being really dominant and would bite into the skin of the little ones and drag them over to him and act very dominantly so I felt I had to stop it before it escalated. There's been no blood drawn.

I then started the carrier intros again and started putting my male into the little ones' cage as well and there were no issues. Then I tried the bed again and this time no problems.

A few days later I tried putting the little ones into my big boy's cage but he got very territorial and would chase them and stand over their hiding places where they sat scared and ready to bite if they had to.

(I had cleaned the cage and all houses and hammocks before putting them all in)

So since then I've had them out on the bed and had my big boy sleep in the little ones' cage with them the last two nights as well. No issues.

But whenever I put them in the big cage my big boy gets territorial. During the day where he sleeps there might not be anything but at night when he wakes up he'll run after the little ones and stand over their hiding places and they will run off and hide immediately. They've learned by now that when they're in his cage they have to be careful but when they're on the bed or in their own cage they can trust him and they happily sleep next to him or try to get him to play with them.

I'm not sure what to do to make it work in the cage and make my big boy accept that they're there. There's been a few times where he's went into a space pod the little ones were in where he just kind of moved around in there dominantly and then went out again but I don't fully trust he won't hurt them if he gets his hands on them, he's always had a very dominant personality and there's been a few incidents in the cage where he did the bite and pull thing to them.

Will he eventually give up chasing them in the cage? Or does he have to get it out of his system by capturing them and dominating them? Because right now they're way too fast for him.

Any advice is appreciated.
 
My first thought is that 5 weeks is very young and they are too small to be introduced to a fully grown adult male. It reads like your process as far as the intro process goes is spot on. I would personally just let them grow more before going through live-in introductions. The other thing you could try is an enzymatic cleaner on the main cage that would completely get rid of all of the male's smell. Also you may have already written this, but make sure you completely rearrange everything in the cage so it looks completely different.
 
They need to be at least 8 weeks old - 10 weeks is better, before starting physical intros
You babies do not smell like rats and are often mistaken for prey and are killed by adults

There are several gradual steps that you need to go through before putting them into a cage together tat has been carefully prepared in advance. IMO you are very fortunate that he did not kill them

Please see http://www.ratshackforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=32368

and joinrats.com
 
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In my country the recommended age for introducing babies is 5-6 weeks as adults don't view them as threats at this age. I realise the general recommendation is different in the US. I've personally never had issues with introducing 5 week olds and have only ever heard of an adult killing a baby one time. In December I tried introducing a baby who was 8-10 weeks old and had major trouble that resulted in me now having two groups of boys instead of one so I'm not really comfortable​ with waiting until they're over 8 weeks old.

We only experience problems in the big boy's cage. In the babies' cage and on the bed we have no issues at all.

Today we tried cleaning the cage again, this time with an enzymatic cleaner and we closed off the second floor of the cage and only put in the three houses they had in the little ones' cage + a toilet. But my big boy still got rough with one of the babies who's now back to being really scared of him. I don't really get his behaviour because he's not constantly chasing them around or anything he just suddenly acts rough with them.
 
Here it is believed that adults do not see other rats as potential threats until they are over 12 weeks of age.
people wait until at least 8 weeks so that babies are large enough to defend themselves if necessary.

Hope everything works out ok for your boys
 
Try adding them to the cage with nothing in the cage. No houses, no toys and see how they do. Your big boy might need to just tell the babies who's boss and once that's been settled, he'll be ok with them.

We used to recommend intros at 6 weeks but then we had a few members with babies that were attacked and killed so we don't recommend that anymore. We wait for the babies to be stronger and faster.
 
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