The evil twin

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lindsayfawn

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 13, 2008
Messages
5,276
Location
Moncton, NB
I always thought it was a myth that when there were twins there was one good and one evil. Well I think we have a pair. Joy being the good twin and Clarice being the evil one. She bit my sister a week or so ago and I thought that maybe we just scared her but she bit me again a few days ago and again tonight. Drawing blood each time.
This was not a playful bit this was an all out aggressive attack bite. None of our rats have ever been like that so I'm a little taken aback as what to do.
We got her at the same time as Joy and Ginger and they have fit in very well and are very social. Clarice runs away and still acts like a scared pet shop rat.
I'm just wondering if there is anything else we can do besides just giving her more one on one time?
 
If you can afford it, I would recommend a spay although no guarantees that it would curb her aggressiveness.
Does she bite outside the cage as well?
All I can recommend is lots of one on one and hopefully she will feel more comfortable and secure with you.
 
She never leaves the cage. She's to afraid. Which I think is why Janeway picks on her. She's so tiny and skinny looking , not like her other sisters who look like a healthy weight. So I dunno if she's that scared that she isn't going to eat with the others or what.
We'll try the extra one on one time and hope that helps her. If not then maybe we will have to do a spay. Frig she can bite hard. My finger is throbbing.
 
Of my two rattlings Shy-Girl was the biter - wouldn't come out of the cage unless we picked her up. Put her teeth through my hubby's finger (thank goodness she missed the knuckle!) *cringe*.

Lots of treats and one on one attention helps. Take your time.
Have the others got a playpen they can play in while you interact with her in her 'safe' place?

I think that's why I took it so hard when Shy passed... She had really come around.
 
I had a rat that was really nice and started bitting... and it was because he was sick. So make sure she is eating and getting a lot of love.
 
Once I catch her we'll have to give her a good look over. She's a fast one that Clarice. Hopefully all she'll need is just some extra tlc with us and isn't sick but she does look quite skinny compared to her twin Joy. The only way we can tell the difference was that Clarice has a small hole in her left ear at the top. Though Joy is a bit bigger then her now, it used to be the other way around.
 
Spays so rarely affect behaviour in dogs, I'm really not inclined to think that it would help in rats. Sort of the opposite from neuters, which usually make a difference but not always... They tend not to but sometimes in extreme cases you might see a change.

I'm curious as to how old she is.
 
moon said:
Spays so rarely affect behaviour in dogs, I'm really not inclined to think that it would help in rats. Sort of the opposite from neuters, which usually make a difference but not always... They tend not to but sometimes in extreme cases you might see a change.

I'm curious as to how old she is.
Click to expand...

I agree it rarley helps dogs but then they go in heat only twice a year.......and for most their behavior does change during their heat cycle......If they were going in heat every 5 days like rats do maybe a more noticeable behavior change would be seen with a spay. So maybe for rats it would help......I know with my baby girls, who are not spayed yet, get in "moods" where they are extremly annoying to the older rats....running around, humping them etc......I have never see my spayed girls do this......so I think it does take away the stress of being in heat and not being able to do anything about it......
This might not be Clarice's problem.......but it would hurt to start there.
 
That's a good point Velma, the heat cycle. But, this is a rat with an apparent behavioural issue all the time, not only when they're in heat, unless the biting is coinciding with her heat cycle. But it sounds like she's fearful all the time.

It may help the in-heat frenzies but I doubt it would do much for her overall character.
 
That is very true moon.....it is certainly not going to change her character......I hope with more time and one on one she does come around.....at least enough to stop bitting.
 
As I re-read this, I have to wonder what exactly the circumstances behind the bites were. In cage, in a specific box or hidey or hammock...
 
I'm curious as to how old she is.
Click to expand...

Clarice is only about 6 months or so we think.

This is the first day we got her, Nov 18th 2008. She's grown a tiny bit since then.
claricenov18-1.jpg


As I re-read this, I have to wonder what exactly the circumstances behind the bites were. In cage, in a specific box or hidey or hammock...
Click to expand...

She never bit before this just started about a few weeks ago. She bit my little sister. When she bit my sister Clarice was out in the open just standing on the middle Fn floor and the other day when she bit me she was in the FN on the top level. She wasn't near anything to be protective of or near anything to be hiding in.
I put my hand out for her to sniff because I know she's very very nervous and next thing I know she's lunging at me and her teeth are in my finger. The first time she didn't break blood but then I tried again for her to come to me and that time she broke the skin.
 
She's being a naughty girl, she's right at the age to want to be boss too.
If you aren't scared of her, next time she does the lunge, pinch her between her shoulder blades and press down and say a firm NO. If she fights it then she's trying to dominate you. If she allows you to do it then it's not dominance and more of a scared or being protective of herself and cage.
Also, keep an eye on any other symptoms like loss of appetite, listless... a change in behaviour could indicate something else is off, either neurological or physical.
 
Her appetite seems fine, she's a big horder. She'll spend a lot of time taking blocks and putting them in her spot. Yesterday I managed to get her out of the cage with no bites! yay! I could tell she was nervous though 'cuase she wouldn't sit still with me or in my jacket. After a bit she calmed down and sat on my shoulder and started to brux. I got a few kisses from her.
So I dunno if she's just moody or what. We're going to try and get some good one on one time with her though , so hopefully it helps.
 
Ugh, I am having issues with my own girl of that age too. Cinder had always been so nice, and naughty, but still nice. But now that I got 4 new babies, she is SUPER hyper and aggressive with them, the babies hide whenever she is near them, and they scream when she pins them. She often she isn't hurting them, but sometimes when they try to get away from her tormenting them, she will bite them and pull them back to her, or she bites them and kind of "digs" at them on their bellies.

She has also been biting me now, last night she put a HOLE in my foot with her teeth. She literally bit my foot right by my toe so hard her tooth went all teh way through my skin. It hurt SO much, and was completely unprovoked. She was just having her out time, came up on the bed and I was petting her, she was fine, then she went to the foot of the bed, dove under the covers and bit me as hard as she could.

She will full out attack my hands if I have been holding the babies, or if they are near and I am keeping them away from her because she is being too aggressive. The big problem is that I have a FN 142, and tried to divide it so that she would be away fromt eh babies, but she will squeeze through the bars, then back INTo the cage, just to bug them, and ripped through the mesh I had to keep her out.

I also tried putting the babies in my small hospital cage, but she would again, escape, and go and sit on the cage, and reach throught eh bars and try to get them that way, pulling them against teh bars. So she is basically being held in the hospital cage as a Detention Centre, with the babies and my Henry in teh FN. I let her out a LOT, and always supervise her, and as soon as she goes for teh babies, I do the pinch and push her down, but she will just try to whip around and bite me if she can. She is NOT calming down. I am trying SO hard to make this work, and my big neutered boy, Henry, LOVES teh babies, and is a huge pushover to them. He even gets upset when she goes after teh babies, and will go over and sort of try to get her to play with him, or step between her and the babies, but she will just turn on him and he will back off. Nothing is working.

Sorry to sort of take over this thread, I just thought this related sort of to what she was talking about. I am just getting so fed up with Cinder, attacking me, attacking the babies, attacking EVERYTHING. I just need some advice. I really CAN'T afford to spay her, or buy another big cage, as I was just denied by disability, and am barely making ends meet as it is.

ANY ideas? PLEASE!?!
 
almost sounds like you need to start intro's over allykat, if she's still trying to be nasty to the babies.


Clarice is doing better. She'll actually come to me know and give me kisses instead of biting me lol so that's good progress. She's still very skittish though. When ever one of the girls come up to her she'll do the squeak and turn paws up and will bite them. The girls still pick on her some because of this. But she'll grow out of it eventually I hope. The one on one time seemed to help so maybe we'll have no more evil twin lol
 

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