Aggressive biting

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Bree

New Member
Joined
Feb 14, 2019
Messages
3
Location
United States
I have a new baby rat named Diablo (girl)
I got her on February 13 2019 and I haven’t touched her yet. I want her to settle in and feel safe before I touch her. When I moved her bed she bit me. Really REALLY hard. This has been continuing for the time that I have had her. Any tips on how to help this?
 

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If give her more time. It's probably fear biting. How old is she? Where did you get her? Does she have a cage mate? That's really REALLY important. It's very bad, and stressful for them to be alone. Try not to feed her through the bars, let her sniff you, talk to her softly. Try to keep your fingers away from her. They seem to hurt the worst when bit.
 
You could have just as easily startled her. Depending on the situation where she came from, if she has a cage mate, and her age, she could have just defensively bitten. I had that happen to me with a rescue boy and a previously defensive boy.
 
How old is she?
Did your fingers smell like food? Rats have bad eye sight and she may have mistaken you for food.
If she does not have a friend, you need to get her another same sex baby (or 2) to live with.
Rats need to live with other rats and babies need at least one other baby to play with

When she nips, make an eeeeeeeep sound and pull your hand away
that will let her know that you do not like what she is doing
and make sure you do not smell like food, etc
 
Last edited:
Lol about the food thing. My rats dont bite me (and other that me theyve had no human contact other than me) so my point is that rats can very widely. What i do for the hamster is i put my scent on a glove and put food on it and feed him so he assoseates my scent with food (the glove is just about not getting hurt) and if he bites i pull away and make a noise.
 
When I was first bonding with my rats I put wet baby food in the palm of my hand and let them lick it off. Be sure to go slowly and not use your finger, that may look like a treat the rat can grab. Talk to her whenever you enter the room, very softly.
 
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