[neonerd336]

I have two rats, Basil and Winston. Both of them have an amazingly agressive food response and will attack anything that even brushes up against the wire on the cage because they think they can eat it, I have been bitten a couple of times just from accidental contact with the cage. I don't usually feed them through the wire because I know that they will associate things near the bars with food but occasionally food will get passed to them through the wire. Please help! How can I stop this behavior?

 

[Gary26Uk]

My little girl used to be quite aggressive like that.Only with food items though.What I did was hold the food tight , sunflower seeds work best as they cant tear bits off.When your rat tries to "snatch" dont let go , only when they ease up and be gentle let them have it.Theyll soon learn its far easier to be gentle.

 

[neonerd336]

That sounds like a great idea I will definitely try it along with any other tips people have

 

[yoshimi]

I've been training my lot not to bite through the bars, as no matter how many times I tell people, they all like to stick their fingers in :roll: first i would stop letting them get any food through the bars. Full stop. it will only re-inforce that food comes through the bars (at this stage anyway).

I then started putting something really un-interesting through the cage, I started with the plastic case from a biro, they would bite it, and I wouldn't move it, just squeak at them, once they lost interest, i would put it in through a different bar, and repeat the process until they just ignored it. Then i dipped the end of the biro in yogurt, they tried to bite it again, but then realised that yogurt needs to be licked. once they licked the biro without thinking about it, i put some yogurt on my finger and stuck that in, they had great fun licking the yogurt off.

So now the only food they get through the cage bars is licky food, and we can stick our fingers in without fear of loosing them Good luck

 

[neonerd336]

good advice! thanks!