Adult rat attacking baby rat neck/nape

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Hossinke14

New Member
Joined
Jan 8, 2021
Messages
3
Location
Michigan
I have 2 baby rats (now 9 weeks old) who I am trying to introduce to our 2 adult rats. I tried once a few weeks ago, but one of the adults grabbed one of the babies by the neck (maybe the nape?) and wouldn't let go, so I waited until the babies were a little older. Their cages have been near each other the whole time. But then today when I tried doing it again (in neutral territory) that same adult rat grabbed that same baby rat and was dragging/shaking her around! It seems so violent! The only way to make her let go was dumping a cup of water on her. The baby hadn't been protesting, so I tried again and let them together. But then the adult rat attacked the other baby and there were lots of squeeks (idk from who) so I dumped another cup of water on her to separate them and called it a night. I know they have to work through their issues, but I am afraid of my one rat being too agressive. She gets along fine with the other adult rat, even though that aren't the same age. I just would expect some boxing behavior or a standoff or something like that before the adult rat attacks the baby. What do you guys think?

Oh, also the baby rats live in a tub cage with a wire top, and when I let the adults free roam, the one agressive rat jumps on top of the baby cage and obsessively sniffs at them and reaches her paw through the wires and tries to grab at them.
 
Twilight said:
Ooh, I wouldn't dump water on her... it might make her even more stressed out! :(

Have you tried joinrats.com intro strategies? (Introduce Rats to Rats)
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Ok, I won't do that any more, I just didn't know how to make them separate.

I will try some of those methods, but the adult rat is very fast and I am worried about her jumping at the baby faster than I can move to separate them. Do you think she would try to kill the baby?
 
I would wait until they are at least 12 weeks or a little more, then try again. In the meantime, make the baby's cage much less accessible to the adults. When they are a little older, if you want them to get familiar with each other's scents before you intro, you can put fleece in both cages, then swap it a couple of times. When you do intros, try not to do anything too harsh to separate them, so they don't associate each other with a bad experience. You can put them in a neutral area, like a bathtub with clean blankets in it. If you need to separate them suddenly, you can use a spray bottle with water, to surprise them, and grab them with the blanket to separate. I have used lickable treats like baby food (ham is a hit here), and smeared a little on their backs, so they have to groom each other or themselves, and are less focused on being top rat. I'd only do this if you don't see any major aggression. Also, if you see grabbing at the back of the neck, just the skin, and tugging, this is sometimes a maternal behavior, and sometimes females will do this with their young, and try to drag them to their nest. My rat Macaroni, used to do this with nearly EVERY rat we introduced her to (even bigger than her), or to our hands, with our clothes if they got too close to her cage, etc.. Good luck!
 
lilspaz68 said:
The neck bite is very aggressive, it's used to kill younger babies. Your aggressive girl may not accept the babies especially yet. Maybe wait til they are a bit older/bigger.
Are you doing neutral intros ?
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Yes, the intros are in neutral space. Here is a link to a video of one of the times we tried. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1STQDOAjVsbbePUjWbjPR8q693OkuO3qu/view?usp=drivesdk
We might just have to wait a few more weeks. Also, it is better to intro all 4 rats together (2 adults and 2 babies) or do one on ones?
 
I initially do mine one on one. I start with the new rat, and the most docile in the group. When I satisfied all is going well, I move up the chain with each one on one. That way, I can easily pick out who the aggressor is. If I have an aggressor, I hold that one back, and do the group that was good, all together. Usually I only have to intro a few times before my aggressor is OK with the newbie. The aggressor will smell the newbie on its original cagemates, and usually gets used to it, or accepts it. Then I do multiple play dates for a few days, until I'm satisfied they will be OK. Then I clean the cage, and do short periods of time with them all in the cage. I'm always close, since they can be totally fine in neutral area, then get super territorial in the cage. The first day in the cage, I'll aim for an hour, next day, 2 to 3 hours. If all goes well, I'll try the day and into night as late as possible. If all is good, I'll just make it permanent. Sometimes it takes a long time to get them completely comfortable. Others, it's right away. The last ones I introduced, when I put the newbies back in their cage (cages were very close) both sets were searching for each other, and slept as close as they could to each other. Like they were actually sad to be separated. So needless to say that intro went super quick!
 

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