puffiness and intros

[hprats]

How much puffiness is acceptable or normal during intros.

My first intros (Albus+Peter to Neville, Neville to Fred, Fred to Albus and Peter) involed almost no puffiness, and it was only the last one that had a tiny bit of puffiness.

Now Peter is puffy when he smells the new boys' scents, and has done some rubbing-marking inside his cage and around the rat room. I haven't tried any direct contact, and don't plan to until after his neuter.

Fred showed no puffiness when he smelled them through the cage or when I put stuff with their scent in his cage. I started intros in the bathtub, and from the beginning he's fine, but he gets more and more puffy as time goes on. Yesterday (second try) was about five minutes. Things were going well. He was showing dominance but in a good way. Biting their neck but not enough to make them upset and usually not enough to even make them squeak. Slowly he got puffier though, and there was a rat ball that I split up really quickly. There was no blood though. I let Fred unpuff and then put him back in, and then he just sat pretty still, avoiding the babies. He kept turning his back to them and even moving his tail out of the way when they got close, and kind of started getting puffier again.

Is this puffiness a normal part of intros or something to worry about? Should I keep doing short intros or try and make them longer?

 

[eagle]

I know puffiness is pretty normal for most of us. I will wait for the intro experts to say on the length of time. When is the neutered scheduled for? Getting the boy neutered may solve most of the problems.

 

[jorats]

Puffiness is definitely normal. It can last the whole intro. Those are the ones I usually put my hand over and push down to the ground, in the hopes of relaxing them. Some rats, even weeks later in an intro will still become puffy. Even after move in, once in a while a rat will get puffy for some reason or other. They puff up to appear bigger, this means either they are being bullies or they are actually anxious and wish to appear bigger to scare off the bullies.

 

[hprats]

Hmm, at the young ones' checkup today, Dr. Munn spotted a bite mark on Harry's back. It didn't bleed much (Like I said, I'd checked him over and found nothing, but they're pretty squirmy). Should I continue intros?

And yeah, how long should intros be? Is there a minimum length of time?

I know puffiness is pretty normal for most of us. I will wait for the intro experts to say on the length of time. When is the neutered scheduled for? Getting the boy neutered may solve most of the problems.

 

[hopefloats]

There isnt a set time for intros some are faster than the others. Others takes weeks. I would try for a week on a scary place, slowly increasing the time. When they can be out with out fights I move to a neutral place, if they fight to much there just go back to the scary spot. you have to work up the time of intros during each one so they can get used to the spot a little and you can see how they interact.

They will box, they will pin and they will be puffy. Some may even scream. You want to watch for lunging and a rat who chases others just to bite them or unprovoked bites.

 

[jorats]

The length during one intro session, should be at least 30 minutes. 1 hour is best. The duration is up to the rats. If they get along right away, a couple of days is all that is needed but some rats can take over a month to get used to each other.