Intros

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So, I moved all three of them, Julienne, Maurice, and Rizzo, all together in a cage. They were fine for a while, but Rizzo and Julienne got in a scrap. Rizzo ended up scratching Julienne, and since Julienne's a hairless, it's more visible. I was wondering, should I put Julienne and Maurice back in the old cage, or leave them? And what can I do about Julienne's scratch?
 
A scratch on a hairless rat I wouldn't worry about, they get scratched up all the time. It's bites to sensitive areas that you have to look out for. You'll likely be seeing a lot of scratches on the boy throughout his life, kinda like how kids always scrape knees.
 
my 6 month old boy Mason is being introed to my 5 girls, buuuut we're having problems. 2 girls up and bit him during what seemed to be a good session (prior to the biting). it would actually help to have a bit of a background of the girls (and Mason!)

3 are girls who are between the ages of 8 - 9 months (all should be from the same litter, were not 100% sure of the age on adoption), not likely to be older. Mason, the boy, is the baby of one of those girls (2 of the girls were pregnant when they came home with us. we had no idea until 1 week later, 2 litters. ended up with 15 rats instead of 3 lol). the last 2 girls are the daughters of the other mom in the group.

so I started out with moving his cage into their room and placing it next to theirs for a week. no aggression, so I started neutral area intros. this went well, even one of the girls who would later bite him snuggled with him in a hammock. so after a week or so of this, I tried a non-neutral area. this didn't go well as somehow a cage door got left open and a girl did not take well to him making a break for the cage. so I scaled it back to a neutral play area for a bit.

again, the neutral area intros went well so I tried the shared area again the other night. this...did not go well. there was absolutely no puffing, hissing, tail wagging, etc. but Mini (mother of the 2 girls I kept) just walked up to Mason and bit him on the back (luckily no puncture wound. just a scrape). she had sniffed him earlier and been fine with him.

the next one is potentially more complicated. Blue had a spay a month ago due to a uterine infection/abnormality. when she healed up I started intros with Mason, at the time thinking I might move her in with him. so she's actually been ok with him and able to be in a cage with him for about 3 weeks. but last night while playing, she started power grooming him and it resulted in a bite on the loose skin behind his shoulder (on his side). luckily again, it appears to just be a bad surface scratch (no puncture mark). but it surprised me. Blue is definitely either the alpha or a beta trying to be an alpha, but she's all ready played the dominance card with Mason and he happily allows himself to be the omega. he's very, very submissive.

to note, after reading this thread, Blue power grooms by going above the other rats. she grooms on the neck/back. she does this on all the other girls, with no issue. so I am not sure if Mason stayed still for a bit and then tried to get out from under her before she was done or what. she's never been aggressive with the other girls to cause harm. whether it be scratching or a bite. Mason is the first bite.

so at this point, I am a bit puzzled as what to do. I'm starting from the beginning. I've moved Mason's cage out of the room until he's healed. I figured I'd start from the beginning once he's healed. is that the right move?

what other tricks are there for rats that are biting?

phew. I really hope this long rambling post makes sense lol. it's late, but I wanted to post my situation hehe.
 
jorats said:
Is it a bite or a yank/grab? Does the girl lunge and attack/bite?
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hmm, with Mini when she got territorial in her cage, it was a lunge (but no bite). the second time she came up behind him and grabbed a large chunk of loose skin on his back with her mouth and bit down (he's a rex with very thin fur and borders on times with nearly no fur. so it was pretty easy to see exactly where she grabbed him). so that was kind of a grab-bite combo. but again, no puncture mark. I'm not sure if I broke it up in time or if maybe it was just a yank/grab. she doesn't puff, hiss, etc. just lunges and starts a fight or walks up to him and bites/grabs.


Blue it was definitely not a lunge. she was grooming him from above (she's done this with all the oldest girls who are her siblings since I brought them home. so this is typical for her with power grooming.) and he was sitting still beneath her (he sits like a statue when any girl grooms him/sniffs him). it was power grooming until I heard a shriek and broke it up. the bite looks like a scrape, there wasn't even any blood really. more like she scraped off a layer of skin or something.
 
So he's getting barbered and that can be annoying to a rat. With barbering, you'll see hair missing and the skin can look chaffed.
With Mini... it sounds more like a grab/yank which is done in a maternal type of way. I've seen many moms do this to their big kids to get them to go with them.
I honestly would not be worried with those types of yanking.
 
jorats said:
So he's getting barbered and that can be annoying to a rat. With barbering, you'll see hair missing and the skin can look chaffed.
With Mini... it sounds more like a grab/yank which is done in a maternal type of way. I've seen many moms do this to their big kids to get them to go with them.
I honestly would not be worried with those types of yanking.
Click to expand...

with Mini, the grab did leave a mark, was on his lower back (closer to his hind legs) and made him squeak pretty loudly. is that typical of the maternal behavior? I know Mini did a fair amount of grabbing (always gentle) with her babies when they were little, but it was always on the loose skin closer to the neck.

hmm. how severe can barbering injuries be? I wish I had my camera so I could take a picture. it's long like a slash, but wide. and it's like a chunk of surface skin is missing, but without blood. so almost like the incisors just scraped. it hurt him enough that he screamed, rather than squeaked. I have minimal experience with barbering, so not sure how common that might be with it.

hehe. pardon my billion questions. I have so much to learn about all of this.
 
jorats said:
Questions are good! Ok so from your description, it's more severe than simple barbering. How old is the little guy?
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I've had rats for 4 - 5 years, but this new group has brought on SO much I've never dealt with! it's been pretty interesting to learn so much more about their health and behavior that I didn't know before.

anyhow, Mason is 6 months old. only 2 days older than Mini's daughters.

I'm not sure if it makes any difference, but he's also tiny. he's 293g and pretty lean (not underweight, just a very small boy. at 12 weeks he was 239, no matter what/how much he was fed.). he's only 33g bigger than Blue and Hazel (Hazel is his mom and those 2 are the largest in the group.).
 
I've had a few tiny boys too, they can hold their own just as much.
I'd continue with the intros, keep going back to neutral if you aren't happy with the results on familiar ground. If you can do intros twice a day that would be even better. How long do the intros last? I like to do them at least an hour.
Also, make sure there's no cage access, that can cause a lot of territorial issues.
 
jorats said:
I've had a few tiny boys too, they can hold their own just as much.
I'd continue with the intros, keep going back to neutral if you aren't happy with the results on familiar ground. If you can do intros twice a day that would be even better. How long do the intros last? I like to do them at least an hour.
Also, make sure there's no cage access, that can cause a lot of territorial issues.
Click to expand...

yeah, I'm giving him at the very least a few more days to heal up and then I think I may try a new neutral place. when they were in a neutral place that even Mini didn't know, she actually snuggled with him. so I think I am going to go back to that kind of territory and stick with it for much longer than I did before.

intros last at the minimum an hour per session. luckily I have plenty of time at the moment to either make that twice a day or make them a minimum of 2 hours a day.

since the best non-neutral place has the girl's cage in it, I think when I get back to that point, I'll remove the cage(s) from the room. maybe even some favorite hiding/stashing points. just to make it as neutral as possible and then slowly introduce those items back if all goes well.
 
I am considering going to the shelter to check out the rats there.

But I am not sure about how my rat (male) would react to another male rat. Do you think they would get along?

I want to find another male rat to keep him company. Should I look for a rat similar in age?

Would a younger rat get along with an older rat?

My rat is 2.5 years old. I don't know how much longer he is going to live. But I take great care of him and I spend time with him everyday.

I read the like half this thread already. I am just not sure if it's worth it.

Any advice you can give me?
 

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