madinaholic
Active Member
Hi all, I've recently just got 4 new 8 week old babies to add to my rat pack. They're in a separate cage at the moment and I'm starting into with my older two girls (18 months).
I've swapped bedding, they're in the same room, let them explore each others cages etc. to get used to the scents. The babies just seem very intrigued and excited by the adults, but my older girls are showing some signs of aggression.
Oddly enough, my dominant rat isn't really that bothered. She occasionally fluffs up, but generally doesn't pay the babies much attention and hasn't had any fights/dominance struggles with any of them. My more timid girl is the one that's showing more aggression towards the babies (to my great surprise!) She fluffs up as soon as she smells them, approaches her sister/cage-mate side on at times, and huffs a fair bit. So far, she's had some dominance struggles with the babies, but nothing too violent and no injuries have been sustained.
So my question is, how much aggression is too much aggression? I don't want a situation to escalate where it does end up in a violent fight, but she is mostly just sniffing the babies and occasionally wrestling with them when they approach her the wrong way. I'm just worried that she is showing more extreme signs of aggression and a situation could quickly turn bad. So far they're been introduced in neutral territory twice, for about 10 minutes each time. I would like to try longer so the adults can get more accustomed to the babies, but after some dominance struggles the babies seem to get pretty scared and I don't want to overwhelm them.
Should I keep doing what I'm doing or is the huffing and puffing (hehe) too extreme and should I take a step back? any advice would be greatly appreciated as I've never introduced rats before and I really am surprised by the aggressive behaviour of my timid girl!
I've swapped bedding, they're in the same room, let them explore each others cages etc. to get used to the scents. The babies just seem very intrigued and excited by the adults, but my older girls are showing some signs of aggression.
Oddly enough, my dominant rat isn't really that bothered. She occasionally fluffs up, but generally doesn't pay the babies much attention and hasn't had any fights/dominance struggles with any of them. My more timid girl is the one that's showing more aggression towards the babies (to my great surprise!) She fluffs up as soon as she smells them, approaches her sister/cage-mate side on at times, and huffs a fair bit. So far, she's had some dominance struggles with the babies, but nothing too violent and no injuries have been sustained.
So my question is, how much aggression is too much aggression? I don't want a situation to escalate where it does end up in a violent fight, but she is mostly just sniffing the babies and occasionally wrestling with them when they approach her the wrong way. I'm just worried that she is showing more extreme signs of aggression and a situation could quickly turn bad. So far they're been introduced in neutral territory twice, for about 10 minutes each time. I would like to try longer so the adults can get more accustomed to the babies, but after some dominance struggles the babies seem to get pretty scared and I don't want to overwhelm them.
Should I keep doing what I'm doing or is the huffing and puffing (hehe) too extreme and should I take a step back? any advice would be greatly appreciated as I've never introduced rats before and I really am surprised by the aggressive behaviour of my timid girl!