Rattiroo
New Member
This is only me second introduction so of course I’m a bit of a nervous wreck, and I’m just looking for some reassurance I suppose.
I adopted a 5 (ish?) month old boy (Odin) from a local rescue as a companion to my 29 month old spayed girl, the last of my previous mischief. I was able to get Odin neutered basically right away (I like mixed cages so I always at least neuter the boys), and after healing up I went ahead and tried a quick neutral (bathtub) territory meet-and-greet. I fully admit I messed up here. My last introduction was uneventful until they were in the resident cage, so I figured they would basically ignore one another for the 5 or 10 minutes I had them together. So, yeah, that didn’t happen.
The Little Allfather puffed up immediately, arched up so much he was on his tippytoes (it would have been adorable if it wasn’t such an aggressive posture), sidled up to Spooks (who wasn’t really paying attention to him) and pounced into a rat-ball. Poor Spooks was shrieking her little head off, so I broke it up and checked her over, seeing that she was fine, put her back in and tried to encourage Odin toward the yummy baby food I had on a paper plate, but he was just absolutely fixated on Spooks, who at this point was just trying to get away from this crazy kid, squealing and chattering anxiously.
I decided to call it and took them out and put them back in their separate cages. I realize I should have started at the very beginning, with bedding and cage swapping, etc, so I’m going back to that now. Hopefully most of Odin’s reaction is hormonal and his neuter will catch up to him and he will chill out, because I can tell how lonely they both are.
Any advice, or similar situations where things turned out okay? I’d appreciate it.
I adopted a 5 (ish?) month old boy (Odin) from a local rescue as a companion to my 29 month old spayed girl, the last of my previous mischief. I was able to get Odin neutered basically right away (I like mixed cages so I always at least neuter the boys), and after healing up I went ahead and tried a quick neutral (bathtub) territory meet-and-greet. I fully admit I messed up here. My last introduction was uneventful until they were in the resident cage, so I figured they would basically ignore one another for the 5 or 10 minutes I had them together. So, yeah, that didn’t happen.
The Little Allfather puffed up immediately, arched up so much he was on his tippytoes (it would have been adorable if it wasn’t such an aggressive posture), sidled up to Spooks (who wasn’t really paying attention to him) and pounced into a rat-ball. Poor Spooks was shrieking her little head off, so I broke it up and checked her over, seeing that she was fine, put her back in and tried to encourage Odin toward the yummy baby food I had on a paper plate, but he was just absolutely fixated on Spooks, who at this point was just trying to get away from this crazy kid, squealing and chattering anxiously.
I decided to call it and took them out and put them back in their separate cages. I realize I should have started at the very beginning, with bedding and cage swapping, etc, so I’m going back to that now. Hopefully most of Odin’s reaction is hormonal and his neuter will catch up to him and he will chill out, because I can tell how lonely they both are.
Any advice, or similar situations where things turned out okay? I’d appreciate it.