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Yesterday I brought home my two new baby boys, who are about 5-6 weeks old. Still too little to be in the big cage (not considering alfie, they can slip through the bars of the cage with NO problems what so ever). With high prey drive cats in the house my Quarantine options are non-existant, all three boys are in the same room, and at first I was worried about Alfie showing aggression and being frustrated that he could smell/hear/see the new boys, but not reach them. This may become an issue, but there are no signs of aggression from Alfie so far. In fact, Alfie seems ecstatic to have other rats in the house. He's been alone for at least 6 months, maybe longer since his previous owner bought him from a petstore, and he was the only rat in the cage.
Alfie hasn't done any puffing up, or thumping around his cage or posturing to indicate introductions are going to be an issue. He's sniffed the boys through the bars of his cage (while I held one of the babies)... I am mildly concerned however that Alfie's reached through and tried to grab the baby. He did try to nip the baby's nose once as well... Is this a sign of aggression, or merely a "HEY!!! You're a rat!!! C'mere and lets play" type of action? When I said no and bopped him lightly on the nose Alfie backed off immediately and looked at me like "What?!"
Once the babies were away, I offered Alfie some outside cage time (which he actually does not usually enjoy) and he readily crawled up to my shoulder, under my hair (where the babies were hanging out earlier) and did some intense investigating. He bruxed, groomed himself, and hunkered down to a snooze pretty quickly.
I was considering doing some outside cage time with all three boys, see how they do together, though I'm not sure if the boys are too little yet to really be interacting with Alfie. They're used to being around a full grown male, they had an older cage mate with their last owner.
Alfie hasn't done any puffing up, or thumping around his cage or posturing to indicate introductions are going to be an issue. He's sniffed the boys through the bars of his cage (while I held one of the babies)... I am mildly concerned however that Alfie's reached through and tried to grab the baby. He did try to nip the baby's nose once as well... Is this a sign of aggression, or merely a "HEY!!! You're a rat!!! C'mere and lets play" type of action? When I said no and bopped him lightly on the nose Alfie backed off immediately and looked at me like "What?!"
Once the babies were away, I offered Alfie some outside cage time (which he actually does not usually enjoy) and he readily crawled up to my shoulder, under my hair (where the babies were hanging out earlier) and did some intense investigating. He bruxed, groomed himself, and hunkered down to a snooze pretty quickly.
I was considering doing some outside cage time with all three boys, see how they do together, though I'm not sure if the boys are too little yet to really be interacting with Alfie. They're used to being around a full grown male, they had an older cage mate with their last owner.