littlematchstick
Well-Known Member
ok these are 2 scenerios in 1 post so bare with me here.
One of my rats, Luna, seems obsessed with my hands--in a bad way.I must state--she has never outright bit me..but she definatley has issues with my hands. She has given me warning nips when I try and pick her up. And she also has this new obsession with shoving my hands out of the cage. if I stick them between the bars she will shove them out with ALL of her might, and she is a lot stronger then I expected! she has always hated being touched, but the hand shoving thing is a fairly new thing with her. As background info, she came from a rat lab on my college campus in the psych department. I'm unsure if she went through any testing but she was seperated from her mom fairly young and was housed alone. Although she was handled everyday as part of the testing procedures. I'm sure this has at least something to do with it, but I was curious if anyone had any other ideas?
my 2nd question is. I have another rat, Jerry, who has pretty much the opposite issue. If I stick my hands in teh cage he claws frantically at them trying to pull them into the cage and he will latch on with his teeth and pull as hard as he can to get them inside. He will also push the other two out of the way and squeak at them if they get in his way. But it is like a frantic clawing and grabbing and pulling. He never breaks the skin or is being aggressive really, he just wants to pull my hands in for some reason. This is a fairly new thing (within the last few days) he is about 8 months old. And I have washed my hands (incase it was food/smell related) but no matter what I do..he just seems to go nuts about it. Any ideas?
One of my rats, Luna, seems obsessed with my hands--in a bad way.I must state--she has never outright bit me..but she definatley has issues with my hands. She has given me warning nips when I try and pick her up. And she also has this new obsession with shoving my hands out of the cage. if I stick them between the bars she will shove them out with ALL of her might, and she is a lot stronger then I expected! she has always hated being touched, but the hand shoving thing is a fairly new thing with her. As background info, she came from a rat lab on my college campus in the psych department. I'm unsure if she went through any testing but she was seperated from her mom fairly young and was housed alone. Although she was handled everyday as part of the testing procedures. I'm sure this has at least something to do with it, but I was curious if anyone had any other ideas?
my 2nd question is. I have another rat, Jerry, who has pretty much the opposite issue. If I stick my hands in teh cage he claws frantically at them trying to pull them into the cage and he will latch on with his teeth and pull as hard as he can to get them inside. He will also push the other two out of the way and squeak at them if they get in his way. But it is like a frantic clawing and grabbing and pulling. He never breaks the skin or is being aggressive really, he just wants to pull my hands in for some reason. This is a fairly new thing (within the last few days) he is about 8 months old. And I have washed my hands (incase it was food/smell related) but no matter what I do..he just seems to go nuts about it. Any ideas?