How to Explain

I need some help on explaining to a human how to react to rat behavior.

You see, I've introduced little Edgar into the big cage with the three yearlings; they all accept her, but one of them, (Dupin) occasionally has dominance issues. She paws at Edgar, chases her, rolls with her, and does a bit of a stand off - Edgar, being much smaller, whines and just wants to get away. The other two rats run to help Edgar.
The issue is my mum is insisting on my 'disciplining' of Dupin; I understand telling Dupin no, or attempting to break up the fight if I figure it's too dangerous, but today mum went over to the cage and beat on it with her hand when Dupin was near, effectively 'hitting' Dupin (although the cage DID take it, not Dupin) and scaring the daylights out of my group. My mum insists this is how I have to do it, but I don't believe her - you don't hit a rat, or even bang on their cage like that.
So I need help convincing her of the alternative ways one should react, if me simply telling Dupin 'no' isn't good enough.

((No, I cannot separate Edgar from the other three at this time; she was starting to literally get sick with loneliness and I was fearing for her health))

You could try a time out cage for Dupin. Every time she is caught being a bully, quickly remove her, tell her 'no' and place her in a time out cage for fifteen minutes.

I have two brothers who can be pretty horrible to each other. One of them was a real bully for a while. When I catch him being mean to his brother, I pick him up, gently flip him on his back and stroke his chest and say 'no'. Flipping him is sort of my way of showing dominance without hurting him. It's taken awhile, but he seems to be slowly catching on.

Unless your mom has ever had rats or done extensive research, she should leave this stuff to you. Especially if they're *your* rats. She has no business terrifying them by hitting the cage. I have lightly tapped/bumped the side of a cage before to get the attention of squabbling rats. But never a hard a hit that would scare them. If that sort of thing continues, you're going to have some very fearful, stressed kiddos on your hands. And stress leads to sick, and sick leads to a lot of heartache and worry. Tell your mom to knock it off.

Where's the darn "like" button??

Tell mom that Dupin is trying to be mom to the rats and feels she needs to discipline Edgar. Your mom needs to understand that rats do things in a colony because they feel they must.
But I have used a time out cage with great success. Tell your mom that animals respond better with love and care and gentleness. Dupin could be very stressed out when she goes after Edgar so best thing for her, remove her fro the cage and place her in a small empty cage for only 10 minutes. Long enough for her to calm down and to realize she doesn't want to be in the small cage. Do this every time Dupin is going after Edgar hard.

The problem is that she is "disciplining" *everyone* in the cage and not just Dupin. Ask her how she would feel if she went to jail every time her neighbours got arrested.

Moon said:

The problem is that she is "disciplining" *everyone* in the cage and not just Dupin. Ask her how she would feel if she went to jail every time her neighbours got arrested.

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Good point! that puts it in a different perspective for mom for sure.

jorats told me to try the time out cage when my oldest female was overly bullying my newest girls. It worked wonders and I will always recommend it to people having similar issues.

This is a late reply! But thank you everyone. Things in the group have settled down much, Edgar seems to be quite the little instigator, but the get along fine. My mum has also left them alone, and for that I'm glad. She's not an animal person.

Great news!

That's good news!

Hello. I'm new to this site. I have two beautiful little girl rats. They dont bite, they dont grab their food, the one likes to cuddle an play, the other can't be bothered with me. They are about 4 months old. My problem is they dont come when I call them. The play full one might, but usually they just ignore me, and disappear behind the furniture. I love them to bits, but this morning I lost it completely with them. What can I do? I feel very bad about it.