My Lovely Rats

It’s Day 27 of the rat introductions and lots of sniffing rat bottoms going on! I’ve been putting the new boys and older rats together every day (the more often you do this the better) on neutral ground (a place neither set of rats normally go). Shy-Shy and Pip have been great big buddies to the baby rats, but Rocky and Stripe have been demonstrating the common signs of aggression: fluffing up their fur, sidling up and kicking with their back feet. I try to separate them before things get out of hand and give them some breathing space away from the newcomers. It is useful to have a plant spray and thick towel to retrieve the aggressive rat, if a fight breaks out, so that you don’t get bitten.

Pip sniffing Dublin

Shy-Shy sniffing Dublin

For information on the stages of ratty introductions I found these sites useful:

http://www.ratz.co.uk/ratintro.html
http://ratguide.com/care/behavior/introducing_rats.php
http://www.fancy-rats.co.uk/information/guides.php?subject=introductions

Cuddling up to Shy-Shy for Protection

Stripe sniffing Jinx

Rocky and Jinx

Today my lovely rats are mostly eating salad

Tags: Introductions //