Intros - how aggressive is too aggressive?

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madinaholic

Active Member
Joined
Nov 22, 2020
Messages
36
Location
Sheffield, UK
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!
 
My older rat is quite timid and she seemed quite scared when I first introduced the babies to her. I'm not sure if this will work as I don't know how aggressive your rat is being or will get but I would put my babies in the cage with my older girl and leave them to sniff around and leave my older rat to get used to them and assert her dominance. She would fight and bully them but it was nothing too serious and I found the best thing was to let things play out. I would put them together after a few days of being separated and then I separated them when I was away/asleep when I couldn't keep an eye on them all. Now they're all comfortable with eachother and there's never any fights! Maybe I was lucky, but I've never introduced rats to eachother before this experience so I don't know if its a good approach, it's just what worked for me. I'd really recommend letting them keep meeting in neutral environments where there's places for rats to hide, and also maybe give treats so there's a distraction for them all? I hope it all works out!! :)
 
My older rat is quite timid and she seemed quite scared when I first introduced the babies to her. I'm not sure if this will work as I don't know how aggressive your rat is being or will get but I would put my babies in the cage with my older girl and leave them to sniff around and leave my older rat to get used to them and assert her dominance. She would fight and bully them but it was nothing too serious and I found the best thing was to let things play out. I would put them together after a few days of being separated and then I separated them when I was away/asleep when I couldn't keep an eye on them all. Now they're all comfortable with eachother and there's never any fights! Maybe I was lucky, but I've never introduced rats to eachother before this experience so I don't know if its a good approach, it's just what worked for me. I'd really recommend letting them keep meeting in neutral environments where there's places for rats to hide, and also maybe give treats so there's a distraction for them all? I hope it all works out!! :)
I'm happy to let them just fight it out because I know it's only natural, I'm just worried that if she's showing signs of aggression that it might escalate and she could hurt the babies. I read online somewhere that huffing is quite a serious display of aggression so I've been removing them from the situation as soon as she does that, but I'm not sure if I'm intervening too soon!

I've been introducing them in the spare bedroom as neither group has played in there at all so there's no territorial behaviour at the moment - she just doesn't really like them, haha. I'm sure she'll come around, she's a very sweet girl usually. It seems like she's acting on pure instinct and doesn't realise what she's doing sometimes so I'm hoping it's just a matter of giving her time for her to get used to their scent.
 
I'm happy to let them just fight it out because I know it's only natural, I'm just worried that if she's showing signs of aggression that it might escalate and she could hurt the babies. I read online somewhere that huffing is quite a serious display of aggression so I've been removing them from the situation as soon as she does that, but I'm not sure if I'm intervening too soon!

I've been introducing them in the spare bedroom as neither group has played in there at all so there's no territorial behaviour at the moment - she just doesn't really like them, haha. I'm sure she'll come around, she's a very sweet girl usually. It seems like she's acting on pure instinct and doesn't realise what she's doing sometimes so I'm hoping it's just a matter of giving her time for her to get used to their scent.
Rats can get quite vocal when they fight even if it’s just for show, so they may not even be in pain, I think you should be careful when they fight and break it up if it looks as if it’s getting serious, like biting or something. They may be agitated if they huff and their fur puffs up, or maybe chattering teeth. This could be a sign to separate them. I think you’re doing a lot for them and I don’t see why it shouldn’t work out over time, unless they’re really stubborn lol. Good luck!
 
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