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?
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?