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Anonymous
Question for rat owners. How much fighting is normal between young female rats and at what point should I be worried? There's been no blood but one of the rats is rather larger than the other (same litter but one was the runt) and although she's the braver of the two, she's been getting dragged around by the butt lately. I don't want to separate them if I can help it since I got the two so they could keep each other company. Would a third of the same age maybe help?
>> Anonymous
no help?
>> Anonymous
they should be ok unless you start to notice blood or missing limbs.
>> Anonymous
Pecking order.. the thing about rats is, they don't really establish an alpha, whoever wins is usually forgotten by the next day. So due to their greedy nature, they may squabble a lot. Normal fighting will be squeaking, standing up and sissy-slapping, cheek/neck nibbling, wrestling, and defending herself by pushing the other away with a back foot (or even just bumping her away with her ass). It's actually very interesting to watch after you get over your initial fear of them killing eachother.

If there's squalling and blood, you will have to seperate them. Very rare for two rats to completely hate eachother, though, especially females.
>> Demyx's Landmaster !!vjyCRKGc15d
>>288915
Agreed. Female rats usually only wrestle and kick each other away when they fight, my girls would always do that when there was food, but most of the time they were amiable.
>> Anonymous
My girls fight every day, and they're fine. A lot of times, it's more noise than anything... they squeal and hold each other down, but it's just dominance stuff. Sometimes one wins, sometimes the other wins. There's never any blood and they're not afraid of each other at all.

In my experience, adding another rat won't change anything, except maybe that the newcomer might get picked on by both of your rats.
>> Anonymous
OP: I think one might be pregnant. Does this explain it? She's getting really fat around the middle and I'm starting to see some nipples.
>> Anonymous
It's normal. It's also awesome. Outside the cage, they jump and flip everywhere like a ninja fight. The rat that gets beaten on probably enjoys it. I've noticed that the weaker rat often initiates the fight. Like its asking for it.
>> Anonymous
>>289285
If one is pregnant she might just be getting territorial in preparation for birth.
>> Anonymous
Do they fight during the day or just at night?
>> Anonymous
>>289685
At night mostly. They wake me up with their squeaking.