Introducing older females

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RattoPazzo

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 8, 2020
Messages
113
Location
Italy
hi,
just about a month ago my rat, Tamira, lost her cage mate and has been living alone ever since. Tami was the alpha, and a pretty aggressive one. there was never any real injury so I never got around to spaying her. she is now 1 year end 11 months old, and with two lumpectomys behind her (and one pretty long) she is now too old to spay.
a few days ago I took in two new rats that are about 1.5 years old. since then my old has been acting up: she puffs up just smelling them and gets very agitated. she is not aggressive towords me, not even afther I played with the new girls but I feel her tense, like she is in intrudor mode. she has also been scratching and rubbing her self on all sort of surfeces (to mark territory I presume).
minewhile the others have stareted to figth among themselfs. nothing too allarming.

I feel like every one is wery tense, witch is understendable, but I'm worried about what will heppen when I put them together. Should I try to put the cages in the same room near each other or just put them on neutral territory?
thanks for any advice!
 
I really don't know... I took in this new rats because my oldy had been left alone. seeing as I will not be able to continue to have rats for nex few years (afther the current ones have past), I looked for older individuals. I didn't want to have a lone rat
If there is a chance, what is the best way? thay have been in the same room for some time now, with the cages positiont so that thay can see eachother, and Tamira seems to have calmed down from the initial shook
 
I did a 5 minutes first session and it went non as bad as I feared. they were all puffed up but no blood just a few squobbles. one of the new ones was a bit terrified but I think we'll slowly get there
 
hi, I need a bit of advice.
first I have to say that this is my first time introducing rats and the breeder that gave me the two new girls is unfortunately not the best, as I have now found out.
I started intros today with the carrier method. As I had to go from what I read on different rat care pages, I kept them in the carrier until they seamed settled. It took may hours, and a few squabbles but at some point they seamed calm enough that I felt they could be upgraded. I put them in a small hamster cage and a big figth imideatelly broke out. So I when a step back and put them in the carrier again. One of them had an injury, so I decided to call the breeder but they coulen't responde so I called the rescue where I first got my rats. The girl that responded was upset that I had used the carrier method (as she thinks is wrong to force the interactions) and advised me to separate the grup, as they are more for nutral space intros (by the way, I started the intros in a neutral space but the rats kept fighting and avoiding each other).
She also told me that many of the rats that come from that breeder to the rescue often have chatracter issues that need time and spays to resolve. The thing is that my rat is almost 2 and I took in this new rats so that thay could be her companions and because the rescue had no sutable rats at the time. If I had known that the rats from that breeder had often such issues I woud never have taken them from there!
I don't know what to think anymore. The rats are separated again and tomorrow I'll have to talk to the rescue again to figure out how to go about this situation.

All in all the intro today resulted in a few scratches an a reddend toe caused by a bite or an almost pulled nail, I think. This morning I would have couted this as an almost succes but now I have no idea and fear that this migth have been a complete faliur.
 
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