File :-(, x, )
Anonymous
I'm in need of some advice.

Recently me and my boyfriend adopted a rescue rat. His name is Danny, we don't know how old he is but he's been alone for a while. He's very loving, very calm and very big.
Anyway we tried introducing him to our other rats. We've had the cages in the same room for a while and we put them all in the bath tub last night, one by one. There was no fighting and we supervised them for a long time while they got used to each other. We also rubbed vanilla essence on all the needed places.

Everything went well until we put them in the cage. It seems one of our rats (Templeton) isn't keen on Danny and he now harasses him. It's gotten to the point where Danny is now acting violently towards other rats if Templeton is near him. Templeton also keeps moving towards Danny and then backing away. We removed Templeton from the cage and the fighting stopped but we can't really leave one of them in a cage since they're all used to each other.

We tried introducing the two of them in neutral territory but the same thing happened.

Is this a phase? We thought maybe Templeton doesn't like being at the bottom of the pecking order and that Danny wants to be the alpha male, but we never had this behaviour when we removed Templeton. Should we continue to introduce them in neutral territory? Would neutering help at all?

Picture related.
>> Anonymous
Do a barrel roll
>> Anonymous
Leave the nuts alone. Rats don't use an alpha dog system, and he's too old for it to be effective. Males will typically fight (most of the fiercest stuff at night) and eventually establish a rough pecking order with the new guy, but there will always be wrestling.
>> Anonymous
>>187788
There's been some serious biting though, quite a few deep ones, i geuss over time they will settle in
>> Anonymous
DONT leave them alone for the love of god.
I've heard shop stories about one rat deciding
to go fucking nuts and they next day the keeper
comes in to find a horrific bloody mess. DO you
want blood on you're walls?

Sounds like maybe it's just a classic male
conflict issues - FUCK I mean even human males
go through that. They just don't like each other. Sounds to me like Danny isn't the one
with the issue but your other fellow.

Are they fixed? If you don't want them
to be separated you'll want to get the key aggressor fixed if not both of them, hell
maybe even castrated(typical solution for over-aggressive rat males).

This all really seems like just that, a testosterone issue.
>> Anonymous
rats have a hard time adjusting to each other if they are matured, they are VERY protective of their owners. when i had my first rate, it would chase and bite my two cats if they came near me.
>> Anonymous
     File :-(, x)
Don't put them in the same cage. Don't leave them alone together. A good way to tell they will never get along is if you have a good smell of their fur and you will probably notice they smell VERY different from one another. The vanilla essance just confuses them at the beginning and everything is a big adventure. When it wears off or you put them back in their home territory they will feel as though they have an intruder.

Out of personal expeirence i had two rats from two families given to me at separate dates, and they were on a mission to kill one another. Often i would come home from work and they'd have mauled one another and bitten chucks out of each other.

Keep them apart. Unfortunately, they don't get better over time. The more one tries to be the alpa male, the more vicious the other will become.