Humping/biting problem

[shade]

Ok I used to have 6 boys in a cage together, 4 were babies. This month the babies will be 6 months old and my two other males will be 11 months. We recently found homes for the last 3 boys (that we wern't keeping) but before that they were tormenting the adults and their dumbo brother. My rat Ben, who is the father, has bite marks and bumps on his neck behind his ear from where the babies were wrestling with him. My other, larger, male Quasar, has no bites or anything. Before the 3 boys were rehomed, Our young rat Batty had fur missing in the spot inbetween his ear and eye. I was really worried but after the 3 boys were gone, everything got quiet and the cage seemed peaceful again.

Just Recently, Batty has been acting really strange. He's been picking on ben and quasar a lot now, but mainly ben. Last night he was relentless. I tried the method of dominating them by pinching their neck and pushing their head down and batty squeeked and protested the entire time, but afterwards he'd just run back to ben. After one incident, ben had a patch of fur missing just behind his ear and After I pulled batty off him, He just ran back to ben and started humping him. Ben will raise up onto his hind legs but he wont defend himself, he'll just stand there and try to stare batty down.

we separated batty from them for the night and put him back in this morning. He wasn't picking on ben anymore but ben and quasar were ganging up on him. I'm not sure what to do to get the boys to stop.

 

[jorats]

Your boys might be going through a mite/lice outbreak. This could be the cause of the small scabs and missing fur. Also rats that have an overabundance of mites will become grumpy and mad. I'd get then checked out, maybe do a Revolution treatment just to be safe.
If that doesn't make any difference then it's behavioral.

 

[shade]

if it was an outbreak of mites wouldn't all my rats have it? my girl's cage is right next to the boys and they're just fine. Ben seems to be the only one with the bumps and batty the only one with the attitude

 

[jorats]

It's possible that the weakest rat will have more noticeable symptoms than the others.
But... now that you mentioned that the girls' cage is beside the boys... there's the problem. If your boys aren't neutered, they must be getting quite frustrated smelling those sweet girls and not getting any, if you know what I mean.
Girls in the same room can set off a hormonally charged male... and it's not his fault, it's nature. What you could try is putting the girls in a different room or neuter your males, or just the male who can't deal with the hormones.

 

[shade]

alright that does explain the humping. I plan on neutering my boys when I get the money but would it be better to fix the girls because I favor boys and probably wont buy any more girls aside from the ones I have.

the only problem though is that the only vet in my area that knows rats would rather neuter than spay.

 

[jorats]

I would always spay girls before neutering boys but because of the health benefit. But if you spay your girls, you would need to have the meet and play with the girls so that they realize the "other rats" in the home are spayed girls.
But... if you don't have a vet that feel confident in spaying, then I may reconsider.
Although, neutering your males is not a bad thing, it would make them into happy little puppies. :cheeky: