Seemingly Food Aggressive

[melon_mayhem]

My rat Izzy has always been the food horder. She eats large amounts of the food and hides (or takes) the rest to bury for later. This has never been a problem with me its more a cute quirky habbit of hers that adds to her personality :giggle:

I've always noticed that she's been rather food aggressive with my other rat who is actually the older and as far as i could see the dominant rat. It gets bad enough that Emma will leave her food to Izzy when she gets tired of Iz picking on her. Emma even escapes her cage several times a day just to get away from her. :doh:

And up until recently she's always gobbled up food that i've given to her, but now she's gotten rather grabby with me. She'll bite down fairly hard on my finger though its not food but then she'll do it several times until she gets to her food which she then proceeds to take and run away like someone's going to take her food even though she's the food stealer. anic:

Is there anything i can do to help train her to be less food aggressive towards me and my other rat Emma??

(sorry for the longness of all this!)

 

[Moon]

In terms of feeding the rats, it might be good to remove Izzy for a few minutes when you first feed them so Emma gets a turn.

My girls can some times get grabby for food, which they DO NOT get if they go for skin accidentally. Every time she chomps say "EEP!" or "OW!" very loudly. When she backs off for a moment or two she can have food.

 

[melon_mayhem]

I have a tiny problem with the seperating during feeding because i have food available all the times and they never eat when i first refill it. I do give Emma and Izzy some baby food because Emma has seemed to have lost weight and i do give them that seperatly.

Should i have seperated feeding times?

 

[Moon]

No, you can continue to free feed... Emma can't watch all the food ALL the time, LOL.

Maybe add a second dish of food for them to free feed from, and when you top them off you can still remove Izzy for a few minutes so Emma can get a head start. Continue to give special meals and treats separately, at least for the first few minutes.

 

[melon_mayhem]

Okay thank you!!

 

[jorats]

My Simon was like this... What I did was whenever they got their veggies, for you it would be baby food, I would remove him and keep him close to the cage so he could tell that his buddies were eating and not him. After about 30 seconds, I would place him back in the cage with his own dish of veggies, in your case baby food.
Izzy needs to see that she won't eat first if she continues this behavior. It actually helped quite a bit with Simon.
How old is Izzy and is this a new behavior for her?

 

[melon_mayhem]

I'll have to try that!

Izzy is almost 2 months old (1 month and 3 weeks)
and Emma is a few days away from being 3 months

Izzy's always been a bit of a food horder. I always thought that since i got her from a pet store and their were so many rats in the aquarium that they were in that she had to use that behavior in order to make sure that she had plenty to eat :sad3:

 

[jorats]

She's only 2 months old, she might totally snap out of this if you are curbing it now.

 

[melon_mayhem]

Thats great to hear!

During feeding times (w/ the baby food) i give emma her serving first then i get izzy's baytril and mix it with the baby food when i give it to her. If she grabs the syringe i pull it back out of her reach and say "easy" then i give it to her again if she eats it nicely then i praise her but if she tries to take it again i do the same as before.

Hopefully she'll continue to do good because i have seen a bit of recognition from her. She seems to understand that i will take her food away if she's not nice while trying to take it!

Thanks for ALL the Advice!!
:heart: U Guys!!