Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Tips for introducing a new rat to my other rats?

I have a new rat, and 2 out of 3 of my others rats accept her, but the third rat is really mean! I tried introducing them in a place where neither usually go (a neutral area), I tried introducing her slowly, I tried switching the rats cages so they can get used to eachothers scent, and I tried using vanilla extract to cover up the scent of the new rat, but my old rat still wants to kill her. I really want them to get along! Are there any other tips out there?
Answers:
Introductions can go either way. Just like people, not all rats like each other and that's the way it is. Presently I have around 100 rats in 15 separate colonies. When the introduction didn't work I just put the ousted rat(s) in another cage and build up that family with rats that get along.
In the last 5 months I've had 3 babies killed by the adult females they were being introduced to; 2 brothers who decided they hated each other and now live separately after many failed attempts at reintroductions; 3 separate colonies of young females come together as 1; 2 baby boys introduced to 5 young man-rats (piece a cake), and a lone older male introduced to an older spayed female (piece a cake). Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
There is always upheaval in the rats' social structure when you bring in new ones. An existing colony is a tight-knit family where each rat knows it's place. Your old rat might not even be the alpha of this family, but her place in the family has now been sabatoged by the new ones and she has to fight to regain/maintain her position and her status. Try to think of it from the poor old girl's point of view.
I see you've done your homework and tried most of the tricks that one can find on the internet.
Are there loud piercing shrieks of fear during these fights? Is there biting and blood-letting during these fights? Is there cowering fear in the behavior of any other rat? These are are all serious and warrant the separation of the rats involved. Are there continuous tussles where they are evenly matched and the boxing doesn't end? This is normal behavior as they battle for alpha status and must continue without your intervention until a victor is established.
May I suggest that you go back to square one and start again after you've quarantined your new rats for a couple of weeks and given everyone a cooling off period. For the sake of everyone's health it is so important to quaratine new rats and not put them together too soon, or too quickly.
http://search.yahoo.com/search?search=qu...
This time I will be with you (spazrats@yahoo.ca) to guide you through the introduction process step by step, day by day.
Introducing rats:
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/pet_...
http://search.yahoo.com/search?search=in...
spazrats
"my life has gone to the rats"
What a rat... if this were a human trying to kill another human what would you do?
try holding them together but not too close or they might like doo somthing.
easy, when putting the rat into the cage w/ the other. Hold him by his tail and say "everyone this is (rats name)" and drop it in. Once the rat is introduced all will be well.
put the cages right next 2 each other and they can sniff each other for a while
Sometimes you just gotta let them duke it out for awhile. They are establishing dominance. After new rat realizes old rat is the alfa female and submitts to her all will be well, but they may still get in an occasional scrap! Also, you may find them humping each other for dominace. No lie!

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