As many of you know I bought a new pet rat the other week. His name is Ricken and he's a gray and white male rat, he's nearly fully grown now, but still a young guy.
Today I swung by the pet shop to pick up some new bedding for his cage and I noticed that the store had received a new litter of ratlings, so I asked if I could hold a few of them since they were so wee and cute. :3
I held one that was all white and soooo teeny and downy with pink eyes, and I instantly fell in love, so I decided to take him home.
Ricken is jealous and curious and territorial all at once, so i've been gradually introducing them to each other over the past hour or so. I've been researching a bit of the protocol for introducing new rats, so here's what I'm supposed to do:
Ricken is the older rat and probably will be the more dominant one, so for now I have the separated so they can get used to the idea of each other. They are in separate cages right now (I only have one official animal cage so I'm using a wire trash bin as the other cage), and they are near enough that they can smell/see each other, but not close enough to bite or scratch.
I've also rubbed each all over with vanilla extract so they smell alike (this is a suggested method).
Periodically I'm going to switch them to each other's cage so they can explore each other's 'territory.' Once I've done this a few times, I need to introduce them to each other in a 'neutral' territory (I'm going to use the bathtub) where neither of them has been before. If they get too aggressive, I'll spray them with water so they'll become distracted with washing themselves (rats, oddly, are very vain/tidy creatures).
Eventually I'll thoroughly clean the cage they'll share and introduce them again to each other there. There will probably be a slight scuffle of dominance, but unless it gets too violent I'm not supposed to interrupt. Hopefully in a day or two these little guys will be just like brothers. :)
Pictures of the new little guy to come. :)
For those curious, this is Ricken.
I've named the new little guy Bran. ^_^ It's fitting, because he loves to climb! (Hopefully he won't fall and get paralyzed...)
TL;DR- I got a new rat, trying to make them not kill each other.
Today I swung by the pet shop to pick up some new bedding for his cage and I noticed that the store had received a new litter of ratlings, so I asked if I could hold a few of them since they were so wee and cute. :3
I held one that was all white and soooo teeny and downy with pink eyes, and I instantly fell in love, so I decided to take him home.
Ricken is jealous and curious and territorial all at once, so i've been gradually introducing them to each other over the past hour or so. I've been researching a bit of the protocol for introducing new rats, so here's what I'm supposed to do:
Ricken is the older rat and probably will be the more dominant one, so for now I have the separated so they can get used to the idea of each other. They are in separate cages right now (I only have one official animal cage so I'm using a wire trash bin as the other cage), and they are near enough that they can smell/see each other, but not close enough to bite or scratch.
I've also rubbed each all over with vanilla extract so they smell alike (this is a suggested method).
Periodically I'm going to switch them to each other's cage so they can explore each other's 'territory.' Once I've done this a few times, I need to introduce them to each other in a 'neutral' territory (I'm going to use the bathtub) where neither of them has been before. If they get too aggressive, I'll spray them with water so they'll become distracted with washing themselves (rats, oddly, are very vain/tidy creatures).
Eventually I'll thoroughly clean the cage they'll share and introduce them again to each other there. There will probably be a slight scuffle of dominance, but unless it gets too violent I'm not supposed to interrupt. Hopefully in a day or two these little guys will be just like brothers. :)
Pictures of the new little guy to come. :)
For those curious, this is Ricken.
I've named the new little guy Bran. ^_^ It's fitting, because he loves to climb! (Hopefully he won't fall and get paralyzed...)
TL;DR- I got a new rat, trying to make them not kill each other.
