Aggressive Neutered Rat

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Stephanie

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 19, 2007
Messages
72
Location
Rocklin, CA
I got my aggressive male neutered two weeks ago adn decided to try an introduction tonight with him and one of my younger males. If he keeps this behavior up I am going to have to rehome him! He has bitten my son three times already and me NUMEROUS times. He has bitten everyone in the household and I figured neutering was the last option. Now he is just as aggressive as ever and I don't know what to do. Any help is extremely appreciated!! I have tried:

Forced Socialization to no avail
Slow intro's
Intro's to girls
giving him his space
moving his cage
Hand feeding him
all the trust training techniques I can think of

Sincerely,
Stephanie
 
This is a tough problem: Jorats, Vanessa, Shelagh and other experienced rat owners will be able to help you with it.

I only have girls, so no experience myself, but I have heard that it takes a few weeks for the hormone levels to go down after a neuter.

Even so, that's really rough if he is biting people so often. I have heard of rats who become aggressive and end up spending the rest of their lives living alone.
 
Hi Stephanie, dealing with an aggressive rat is really frustrating and scary. But a neuter can take up to 3 months before it can take full effect. I'd say give him time.

If your energy is very stressed with him, then this won't help him either but who could blame you right? It might very well be in his and your family's best interest to find a good experienced home for him. The change might very well be what he needs.

There are quite a few of us that have been there and know exactly how you feel. It really is hard. If you do decide to give him a couple more months, then I would suggest that you try one on one socializing after a couple more weeks, than again a couple more weeks after that if he wasn't ready yet.
But remember, you may never be able to put your hands in the cage, that territorial behaviour may never leave him so it's best to socialize him outside of his cage.
 
I have removed him from the "rat" room and changed him to a water bowl instead of water bottle. After some very tentative trying I got him out of his cage again to check on him and apparently the neuter incision has abscessed pretty badly. I also saw what looks like stitches still in him!!!! I can imagine this must be causing him some severe discomfort. I have decided to take him back t the vets (I WILL NOT BE GOING THERE AGAIN) at their expense to fix him up. Also I plan on going back to the days when he was sweet by FORCING the little bugger to spend time with me. So he will again be living in my hood for a while save for potty, and drinking breaks he will be with me at all times!! If this does not fix things with him I will be left with no other choice but to keep him away from my entire family and fed and clean when he allows it. If that is how he wants to live I will let it happen but I will feel horrible allowing it.

:edit: spelling
 
It sounds like he is in a lot of pain.
Rat neuters can be very painful thus they are put on pain meds for 4 day after the neuter.
Then to have an abscess on top of that :cry:

Sounds like he needs antibiotics and nursing care.
Hope he feels better soon.
Hopefully he will be more friendly once he is feeling better.
 
Neuters can take awhile to take effect (3 weeks before they are allowed to be with females on average, so I would assume 3 weeks plus for all hormones to be gone in most cases) and then the behaviours often disappear or subside.

Poor boy, that sounds horribly painful, so being nasty and grumpy was allowed at this point. Nursing often bonds you to a rat the fastest. If he continues to bite you might want to wear gloves to deter him while you are taking care of his abscess, and tell the kids "hands off this one".

If you find its just not working, then rehoming is a good option.
 
I'm wondering if maybe he's not well?

I had a male that was aggressive even as a baby. I figured he'd turn around but he grew into one nasty adult. My solution was to neuter him but he never changed. A few weeks after a smooth surgery, he died. Nothing appeared to be wrong with the incision, and we wonder if he was sick from the beginning and was so mean because he was just not feeling well. We'll never know!
 
I managed to coax him out of his cage today (with much squealing and protesting from him) and he is now perched on my shoulder being nice as can be. I am going to force him to be on me as many hours out of the day as possible and once he is no longer biting, nipping, squeaking then i will start socializing him with my kids. He is going back to the vets today to be rechecked and put on antibiotics for the abscess (hopefully she will drain it as well) I will update on what I am told there! I just hope he gets better I love the little bugger!! as mean as he is he is my baby. I like to call him Sebastian the S**Thead LOL
 
OK so the vet is really pleased with how the rest of the incision is healing and she wants to do antibiotics for a week recheck again and then another week of antibiotics! She is more concerned about the stitches not being completely dissolved than the abscess since it looks to her like his body is just reacting to the stitches rather than them being infected. He will be on ammoxi for the first week or two and if that doesn't get the infection down then she will do baytril. She didn't want to go doxy just yet because after that there are few options. For the most part he was very well behaved except one attempt to chomp on me. She said not to drain just yet but to wait for the first week of antibiotics to start working. All in all I am very pleased with how it went now if only her receptionists would be as nice as her!! To solve this issue she told me to completely bypass the receptionists and to talk to her directly from now on LoL
 
Sounds like you have a great vet there. The abs will most likely take care of the abscess. There's really no need for doxy. If the ammoxi doesn't do it, the Baytril will for sure.
 
well after only three doses the swelling has gone down quite a bit and it seems he is feeling better!! though I did get a video of him awfully mad at me lat night I will upload it and give you guys the link so you can see what i mean by no huffing or puffing. He was trying to get me to go away by piling his bedding up in front of the door LoL. Mind you he is in a small hospital cage right now and RARELY in there. I have had him out whether he likes it or not pretty much all day lately.
 

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