Baaaad intros and a Naughty little girl!

[allykatt]

I originally posted this in the "Evil Twin" thread, but thought I would just turn it into its own thread no

I am having issues with my 6ish month old girl. Cinder had always been so nice, and naughty, but still nice. But now that I got 4 new babies, she is SUPER hyper and aggressive with them. The babies hide whenever she is near them, and they scream when she pins them. She often she isn't hurting them, but sometimes when they try to get away from her tormenting them, she will bite them and pull them back to her, or she bites them and kind of "digs" at them on their bellies.

She has also been biting me now, last night she put a HOLE in my foot with her teeth. She literally bit my foot right by my toe so hard her tooth went all teh way through my skin. It hurt SO much, and was completely unprovoked. She was just having her out time, came up on the bed and I was petting her, she was fine, then she went to the foot of the bed, dove under the covers and bit me as hard as she could.

She will full out attack my hands if I have been holding the babies, or if they are near and I am keeping them away from her because she is being too aggressive.

The big problem is that I have a FN 142, and tried to divide it so that she would be away from teh babies, but she will squeeze through the bars, then back INTO the cage, just to bug them, and ripped through the mesh I had to keep her out.

I also tried putting the babies in my small hospital cage, but she would again, escape, and go and sit on/beside the cage, and reach throught eh bars and try to get them that way, pulling them against teh bars.

So she is basically being held in the hospital cage as a Detention Centre, with the babies and my Henry in teh FN. I let her out a LOT, and always supervise her, and as soon as she goes for teh babies, I do the pinch and push her down, but she will just try to whip around and bite me if she can. She is NOT calming down. I am trying SO hard to make this work, and my big neutered boy, Henry, LOVES teh babies, and is a huge pushover to them. He even gets upset when she goes after teh babies, and will go over and sort of try to get her to play with him, or step between her and the babies, but she will just turn on him and he will back off. Nothing is working.

I am just getting so fed up with Cinder, attacking me, attacking the babies, attacking EVERYTHING. I know that at her age, they are more hormonal and can get more aggressive, and that in a few months she may calm down, bit I REALLY don't want her to have to be held in teh small hospital cage when I am not there, until she calms down. And what if she DOESN'T calm down?!

I just need some advice. I really CAN'T afford to spay her, or buy another big cage, as I was just denied by disability, and only work part-time as a Nanny. ANY ideas? PLEASE!?!

 

[eagle]

This may be a silly suggestion, but have you tried a squirt water bottle/ I found this works great as a distraction when my rats are together and start their bickering. Just a thought

 

[ryelle]

The water spray works a fair bit. Rats are too vain, and they stop and immediately start grooming themselves once they get wet. Has she bit you anywhere else? None of my rats have ever bitten anyone in their lives... until it comes to feet. We call it a sock or foot fetish, and everyone knows to move their feet if there is a rat around. They havent broken the skin on anyone, but they sure do give your toes a good nip. Theyve made my boyfriend shout ouch before. Its only ever if you have socks on though.

Where are you doing the intro's? and how long have you been doing them?

 

[jorats]

Oh boy... she's gone right nasty.
There aren't very many suggestions left apart from the spay and bigger cage.
The grabbing with the teeth and pulling them towards her is not an aggressive move, it's a maternal instinct action. Mom's do that with their babies. Just thought I'd mention that. Still doesn't help with the other aggression.
I really don't know what to say, I can feel your frustration it's always a hard thing when you have a meanie in the home especially one that goes after you too. Just remember, she's stressed out, it's nothing personal, just her inability to cope with the stress of the new babies.
If you were near to me, I'd offer to take her in. Sometimes just a change in homes, a change in routine can snap her out of it. Mmm.. can you change the routine up a bit. Instead of taking them out at different times or changing the time when you feed them? Anything is worth a try right?
Remember, you aren't alone, there are so many of us that went through this and your feelings are real and justified... it's hard when one goes neurotic on you.

 

[ryelle]

I know this is a completely different animal, but when our parakeet gets super agressive when breeding season starts, we have to change all of his routines. We have to bath him more, feed him more seed than pellets, and we have to up his night time to 14 hours a day. It knocks him out of it all after a week or two. Also changing his toys and cage around helps it all aswell.

so i'd suggest trying what Jo said