Alpha Behavour Question/Observation

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OldsGal

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 21, 2007
Messages
428
Location
Nebraska
Ok so I have a rat who has a very Alpha personality. She is boss of her cage. But she confuses me royally. Any time I try to intro her to other rats who are very submissive and very happy to let her rule the roost she refuses to accept them and bullies them to no end. However, when I tried to intro her to two other girls who were nasty alphas and I just knew it was gonna go bad. Nope. All three of them got along swimmingly with no one bullying anyone and in fact it was hard at time to tell who was the alpha of the cage. Why is this? Wouldn't it seem that the opposite should happen. She should live happily in a cage where she is not being challanged and be constantly fighting in a cage that is full of strong willed rats?

Staci
 
I can understand your confusion.
All I can think of is that some rats as in people need the strength of others to help them be stable. If these rats are with weaker rats, it "freaks" them out. My guess is that the rat in question is not an alpha rat but needs to have dominance over her to keep her straight and stable.
Whatever the reason, it's great that she finally has buddies.
I know that some rats can't get along with just any other rat. It takes a special group, or even circumstance before they are ready.
Radar was one such case. I had a hard time finding the perfect buddy for him until I thought of Isabelle, which at that moment made perfect sense to me. Those two are such lovebugs now.

A word of caution though, for those not fully observant of rat behaviour, what OldsGal did is I'm sure with great awareness and she was at the ready in case something happened.
In most cases, putting alpha with alpha will not work.

I remember reading about a "so called" breeder, not the one we all know of but another Canadian one, she had a very mean alpha male, he lived alone. She then either acquired or bred a younger male who was being mildly aggressive in his cage of other male buddies. All these rats were not neutered cause as well all know, breeders don't believe in speutering. This breeder thought she was going to teach the young one a lesson by putting him with the mean alpha. You guessed it. Both males went at each other, both cause such severe damage, they had to be rushed to the vet to be put to sleep.
 
OMG Jo that is a horrid thing to hear a breeder do. And yes I can promise you that the day I introed the 3 alpha rats together I was totally prepared to take any matters into my own hands if needed. I then sat by the cage alllllllllllll weekend making sure that nothing happened. Imagine my huge surprise when nothing did. I was totally prepared for mayhem but all I got were three girls curled up in a hammock snoozing. I mean come on how boring is that! LOL
 
It sure is hard to guess what will happen with rat personalities. But I guess it can be like that with people, too. An assertive person would get no resistance from a "doormat" and could therefore tend to turn into a bully. Who knows? Rats also must have likes and dislikes just the way we do.

On that topic, I am feeling GUILTY :cry: about having kept back just two of the foster girls. I had observed them carefully to make sure that there were no highly bonded pairs. SQ confirmed it when I took the whole gang of seven to Halifax. We played with them all on the couch, and observed them in the playpen.

So I took back two girls to live with me, and they seem so subdued! They sleep together sometimes, but mostly stay apart. They fight often, and they are not as active as they were when they were with their five sisters.

Either I picked the two who like each other the least, or they are just lonely for the lively atmosphere of a bigger group. I had planned to intro them to one of my older groups, but that won't be as fun for them.

So I have to decide whether to take these girls back to be with their sisters or whether to bring back another sister or two to liven things up.
So I have made a mistake in breaking up the group.
 
Godmother, this happens a lot. Each time siblings are taken from each other, the dynamics change. Siblings will miss each other and as a result will not be as active and happy but with time, they will forget and they will adapt.
A group of three is a good number and I've noticed are far happier, adapt faster than a pair of siblings.
 
Thanks, Jo. the last time I adopted two sisters they seemed happy, but I still felt better when I went back to get another sister. They get along fine. I think two tend to get on each others' nerves.

So I'll have to head back to Halifax before too much time passes!
 
I think sometimes an Alpha doesn't WANT to be Alpha, but they feel they need to... I can imagine that is stressful. Having someone else come in to take over or share the work could be a relief to them.
 

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