Rats intros - normal dominance aggression?

The Rat Shack Forum

Help Support The Rat Shack Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Charlize

Member
Joined
Jun 25, 2017
Messages
12
Location
New Brunswick
Hello,

I'm introducing a recently (3.5 weeks ago) neutered (and rescued) 8 month old male rat to my colony of spayed females (1.25 years and 2.75 years old). My old lady was my original alpha, and remained alpha after introduction of the two younger gals.

They've gone through the close cage exposure to introductions in the tub. No concerns in either of those areas, except that it takes a while for my male to leave their lady bits alone, which annoys them.

Today, they did intros in a more familiar play area to both rats (the couch). He's power groomed my least dominant rat already, however, there's some interesting behaviour (maybe) occurring with my elderly alpha. He was bothering her earlier on in introductions so she gave him a little "bugger off" nip a few times. It wasn't severe, and no blood was drawn. However, they seemed to poof up near each other after this interaction. However, after multiple exposures, they don't poof up next to each other anymore, typically.

But, today I noticed that when he got close to my old lady alpha, he poofed up a bit, contorted himself a bit sideways, and it looked as though he was placing his head down in front of her. I'm not sure if he was trying to submit, but she didn't take the bait and jump on him. I've been keeping a close eye on that particular behaviour to make sure that if she did nip he doesn't retaliate severely. Nothing has occurred thus far, but he'll continue to kind of sideways rub her and poof up, almost as though he's provoking her. She'll poof up in response to him dong this a few times, but not biting has ever occurred.

Is this a normal dominance establishment behaviour, or is this a sign of aggression that requires intros going back to the bathtub?

Thanks!
 
Last edited:
In my opinion and from what I've read, it's normal for a new rat to establish dominance in a colony for the first little while. What the male is doing does seem to be submissive behaviour as far as I can tell, especially because the older female is not too bothered by it. I haven't done any research on rat behaviour in particular, but lowering the head is usually submissive behaviour in animals.
He seems to understand that the older female is the one that he needs to answer to, and he is trying to figure out exactly where he stands and how to approach her.
 
Thanks! I was watching some of the videos on joinrats yesterday to see if I could spot the behaviour I'm seeing and I could not. I'll go back and take a look for ideas though.

Thanks for the ratbehaviour website!!
 
Just like in rabbits, putting their heads under a rat is a dominant behaviour. So your male is trying to reign in the female but luckily, in rats, females are usually the boss or at least very much respected. I'd let them work it out. More familiar ground intros, make them an hour long. You want them getting tired and relaxing, sleeping with each other.
 
How interesting!! Thanks for this information. They do eventually seem to get bored after about 45 minutes, but he definitely doesn't snuggle with the girls yet. He's off on his own once he doesn't find them as interesting. He's been showing far fewer signs of that aggression now, after a few more days of forced socializing. I'll continue to let nature take its course.

Thanks!!
 
I'm STILL doing intros with my newest boy and my elderly alpha girl. They had two good days of not really paying each other much mind. But today, I let them down to play and Anova takes a flying jump/bite at Lester. She had done that before earlier this week. It was followed by her trying to/nipping his tail which resulted in him turning around and jumping up to retaliate, I assume.

I was there for all of this, so nothing got serious. However, I'm not sure what else needs to happen for them to be able to live together. They seem to have more problems in the playroom than on the couch.

Any suggestions of what else to try to help these two get along. Lester gets along fine with the other two girls now. They've submitted to him.
 
so they are ok in neutral territory but not in familiar territory?
If so, do more 3o + min neutral territory intros

also read what joinrats.com has to say

good luck
 
The couch isn't really technically neutral BUT the office does have both of their cages in it. During playtime, I remove his cage so he's less concerned about defending his territory.

I guess I'll do more couch intros for longer periods of time and see if that helps. I'll check out joinrats.com and see if they've got any additional advice. Thanks!
 
When Anova lunged and bit Lester, was there a bite or gash on him?
I would do more intros for sure, if you can do a few times a day and at least an hour long that would be beneficial.
 
Nope, no bite or gash. Anova is almost 3 years old and is suffering from HLD and some kind of PT symptoms. Needless to say, she's pretty old, and her bite strength isn't great right now (I suspect she's starting to regress a bit since the introduction of Prednisone). I was amazed that she could even fly into the air like that at all!

I'll try increase the number of times I do it per day and see if that helps. I definitely want them all living together and I feel bad that he's alone in his cage.
 
Poor sweet old girl. Old age/dementia can also cause her to act out. So more meet ups will make her remember him as a friend and not an intruder.
 
Yeah, she's pretty lovely. When I did intros a year ago with two little new baby girls, she was absolutely fantastic! Lester has been a bit of a pest trying to establish his dominance as well.

I'll get them meeting up together more!

Thanks for the help!
 
Hi Charlize,

I adopted a rescue rat, male, who was neutered prior to me receiving him. He had gashes all over him as he used to force himself on his non-spayed female companion, or at least that is what I was told.

I brought him to the vet right after receiving him and the vet said that although it appeared he was neutered too early, he had healed well. Anyways my point was that after a few weeks of me having him, his testosterone levels decreased more (from the neutering) and after they dropped off, he became the most calm, and non-aggressive rat ever. He never fought with his sister when I had him, but even his play fighting was very soft.

Later when I got three baby females (after they were introduced, and were a family) he wouldn't ever be rough with them when they were too hyper or bothering him. His sister actually came to his rescue and would shoo the hyper little ones away from him. It was actually quite amazing.

Now that he is three, he has been incredibly sensitive towards the others. Whenever they feel unwell, he follows them and guards them so they are not disturbed, and when they feel well again, he goes back to liking his peace by himself.

So perhaps if the testosterone slowly depletes from your guys' system too, they might calm like my guy. Just thought I would mention this since it happened to me and it might happen to others as well. : )

Wishing for all the best with your guys : )

(Sorry for the late post, I thought I had pressed 'post' but I just see I didn't now when viewing my old open tab, eep!)
 
Thanks for your post!!!

Lester is definitely doing a lot better with the girls. Still working on intros, BUT, I think this weekend I'll try do the cage test with them all. I hope it goes well :)
 
So, today was day 1 of supervised cage time with all of my girls and the new boy. He's really only problematic with my older girl (alpha of the three girls). They haven't had any issues on the couch, in the play room on the floor. Cage was scrubbed clean and decorated differently so my old lady wouldn't get up in arms about him being in there.

However, the two are not particularly getting along. He pinned her once, and she proceeded to nip him a few times after that. Now both of their fur poofs when they're around each other (we had got to a point where this is no longer the case). I tried putting some vanilla extract on them to disguise scent and it didn't seem to help.

I put them in their vet travel carrier together and now they're sleeping. Once they're more active again I'll try to get them to play nice in the cage. But I'm wondering whether I should leave them overnight together, or if it's too dangerous?
 
I elected to keep them separate over night. I decided to rewash everything this morning and try again. They seemed to be OK during the day, but possibly only because I was there monitoring and petting them whenever they came in contact with each other. However, this evening, Anova just lightly put her teeth on Lester's neck, and that was it for the gains they had made. He got all poofed up and stiff. I contemplated leaving them to see if they'd leave each other alone, but Lester approached Anova in her hammock, and nudged his head up to her side. It's as if he's antagonizing her so she'll respond and he'll retaliate.

If I put them in their vet carrier, Anova doesn't even care that he's there. Whereas Lester will sometimes get stiff next to her. But after some time they don't even notice each other. If I put them into the cage immediately from there, she's a bit edgier and nips him and he gets all poofed and stiff.

I'm not really sure what other non neutral areas are left. They spend their time in their cage, on the couch, or in their playroom. They are fine on the couch and in the playroom. However, they did use to have some issues in each of those areas. They have resolved with time, which makes me hopeful.

Is there a way to do cage introductions slowly that don't immediately end up in escalated aggression? I haven't come across anything in joinrats.com yet that I think will help.

Sigh. Today was the first day Lester actually snuggled with the other two girls (he NEVER does any kind of cute snuggling with the younger girls on the couch/in the playroom). I just want them to get along so he doesn't have to live alone.
 
Can you try cage swapping? Putting him in the girl cage and the girls in his cage? This worked well for us when we added Ghost to our mischief and were having aggression issues with introductions and play time.
We did end up having to keep her separate, in the end, as all of our introductions to a shared living space failed, she was able to play safely and kindly with the other girls but made it clear that living together was out of the question.
 
Back
Top