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Ellagee Ellagee Fairy Frog Mother Greatballzofire |
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Ellagee View Profile |
Two Rats: Introducing Help?
Hey, it’s been a long time since I’ve been on the site, but I am really nervious about my girls. I have an online friend who has rats of her own and is walking me through this all but I need more opinions. I have recently acquired two young female rats. Frankie (Link) is about 12 or so weeks old and I’ll have had her for a month this Wednesday. Carli (Link) is about 10 weeks or so old and I got her this past Thursday. I got them from the same store, 2 weeks apart. Carli is an albino dumbo and Frankie is just a fancy rat. Those pictures were taken on the same day, I have better ones of Frankie but she’s grown since I’ve had her so that gives the best with size difference. They both can still fit through hamster tubes, although Frank can’t fit through the paper towel roll that Carli can. They do not live with each other yet, however they have met (in a neutral territory box then hanging out in my hood) and I even let Carli go in Frankie’s cage with her (with my supervision all the while and for less than an hour) because they were doing great. (Twice in the very beginning while they were climbing on each other Carli squeaked (Frankis nip her?) but never again.) Carli is currently living in a 10 gallon tank and Frankie is in a 20 gallon long tank with a topper (Link). (That picture is actually kinda old- when I very first set it up and taken with a camera phone by hasn’t changed too much.) They were doing absolutely perfect together and I thought it was going great. But I let Carli in the big cage again with Frank today. It was the usual ’OMG it’s another rat!’ and all that running under each other to sniff, ect. Normal. But then Carli went down into the "basement" with all the bedding and hence all the stored food. She’s done this before- stolen some food then trotted over to a corner to munch on it. Frankie didn’t care much (thank God! I thought she would have been food aggressive with the way she loves grabbing the food from me) before and this time she didn’t either. But then she ran up and just stole the food from Carli and ran. It was all very sly and Carli didn’t notice anything happened until Frank was clear across the tank. Carli, confused, went back to where Frankie stores the food and grabbed herself another chunk. (For the record I feed the lab block stuff.) So I wasn’t comfortable with the food stealing so I went to get them out. The cage isn’t set up with very easy access to the basement so I called them one level up. Frankie usually comes (I told you, she loves that food) but Carli isn’t keen on the whole ramp-up thing so usually only goes up if Frank is too. They were mid-way up the ramp when they both stopped. Frankie was staring at me (probably smelling out if I had food to give) and Carli was just kinda looking around. Then Carli grabs (using her mouth) Frankie (by the foot?) and tugs a little. I hit the tank (lightly, just to make a noise) with my hand to show my dislike for the behavior but Carli did it once more, this time grabbing some slack skin on Frank’s stomach. So I’m really mad now and reach my hand down and (barely reached) grabbed Carli and pulled her out. The floor is wire so she was grabbing on and I had to tug a little (it was pretty gentle, especially for how stressed I was) and I carried her across the room and put her in her tank. I heard a little sound when I had her passing the glass wall so I think I may have let her tap her head on the wall (she was swinging around a little, I didn’t ever get a better hold on her- the room isn’t that long the entire walk took 2 seconds). I felt a little guilty for that so grabbed a food chunk and handed it to her. She actually took it. She has never done that before- that’s why I never figured she’d be food aggressive, she never took food out of my hand; I had to put it on the ground near her to get later. So that was weird. My current theory is that Carli is getting food aggressive. Please let’s not have spamming here nor rude comments. If you have a comment about something I did or whatever that is not directly related to this issue then you may send me a kindly worded message. Thank you. (Sorry if my spelling sucks, it’s a lot of words. And you can call me Ella btw.) |
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| 04/20/09 04:46pm |
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Ellagee View Profile |
Message To: Ellagee In reference to Message Id: 1989480 Two Rats: Introducing Help?
Wrong board- I read too fast. Saw "rats" and came running! If you have help I re-posted on the right board. Link |
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| 04/20/09 04:54pm |
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Fairy Frog Mother View Profile |
Message To: Ellagee In reference to Message Id: 1989486 Two Rats: Introducing Help?
Rats, like mice, need to establish dominance. This behavior will likely go on until they are allowed to establish a pecking order. The food dominance will happen. Its natural. Slapping the sides of the cage will only result in stressing them out possibly causing the dominant one to be even more aggressive. Interfering every time one is trying to establish her dominance will only prolong and possibly compound the problem. As long as you have enough food in the tank for each of them, it should be alright food wise. Try putting the soiled bedding of one in the tank of the other to get them used to each others scent. You can also try a lab block cage like GBoF has for his mouse tank along with a little bit of fresh fruits and veggies (mostly Veg) in a small dish. They will steal food from one another, but then the one will still have access to the lab blocks. Just keep that tube in there so the one can dash off and get away. Even my sister mice will establish their dominance of their nieces on occasion. When I raised Rats, I always kept Daughters with mum. Once in a while a daughter would try to be dominant, then Mum would put her in her place with a nip. I never had any serious injuries. Of course, if they actually full on attack repeatedly and draw blood, you will need to separate them and clean the wound with betadine on a Q tip. You’re lucky the rat that got its head bumped doesn’t have a serious injury. Maybe not handle them when you’re upset. That could have done a lot more damage than a nip, and clearly you already know this, or you wouldn’t feel guilty. Its hard sometimes when we project our own feelings into what animals do. Try to think of it from their perspective as rats trying to survive. It might help you see whats going on more clearly. Your observational notes were great. Try checking out some Rat resources to get some insight into rat behavior and it will help I think. And so ya know, Ive not seen any evidence of flaming in this area of the forums. Just folks tryin’ to help one another out. Sometimes its hard to take constructive criticism without getting defensive. Ive learned a lot from folks on these forums. Even the ones with slightly more critical views. Good luck! |
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| 04/23/09 05:20am |
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Greatballzofire View Profile |
Message To: Fairy Frog Mother In reference to Message Id: 1991407 Two Rats: Introducing Help?
My wire mouse feeder. Posting it again as finding it in old threads may be difficult. Be sure to grind down the pointy edges with a Dremel tool. This has saved me a lot of money as they can’t soil the food, but can get bits out to eat. Thanks for the vote of confidence, Fairy Frog Mother! |
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| 04/23/09 08:55am |
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