[A1APassion]

Jitters my OCD rat totally flipped out. I've had to isolate her for now.

I took in a close friend's rats since she has been having horrible allergy symptoms & they are at their worst when she gets home. At work she is fine but within moments of coming home she feels like ****.

We planned on them coming to me a couple weeks ago & today they arrived. Since my current big cage is in a state of transition after losing Fluffy this week, it was perfect time to make intros... might as well let all this business with new dominance orders being established work out along with new intros. (right? seemed like a good idea)

Everyone was very cool with each other IMMEDIATELY! I mean I put them all on the floor & they were just like, hey, how's it going, where the heck have you all been? Instant buddies with lots of play & mutual grooming.

Well, everyone except Jitters. She flipped out... not just flipped but she attacked everyone. I had to grab her with an oven mitt. I figured she would be my hard case because she has some very bizarre quirks but I really didn't expect this. I gave her a few minutes to chill & tried again. She was like a bullet & attacked the first rat she saw & then completely tripped when I tried to touch her, so on with the oven mitt again. I gave her an hour to chill on her own & then let her sniff one of her established "sisters" & she attacked her immediately. I couldn't even put her down, Jitters rushed her while she was in my hand.

CRAP!

Now what? I have the new 4 rats & the original 2 completely chillin' in the big cage. They are all cuddled up in the hammie & grooming each other & Jitters is being a PITA.

Has anyone ever had this happen? Does anyone else have a rat with horrible OCD symptoms? She has never dealt with change but I can't let her issues wreck it for everyone else who is getting along famously.

I'm thinking I may have to get her some Ratty Valiums or Prozac or something. I just don't want to sound like I total idiot when I go to the vet on Monday. I'd like to get some feed back & print off some info if anyone has anything to share or if they know of links about this.

I'm going to go take another look at her now & see if she has calmed down & try one more time with one of the established girls she has lived her whole life with (well since I got her when she was just a baby) & if that doesn't work I will try again tomorrow in a small amount of water. I don't really want to wash them again because they all just had baths today when I did the intro at around 5 pm.

I will check back to see if anyone else has any suggestions as well. I really hope I can get her to calm down & get back with the group. Looks like I know what I will be doing all weekend.

 

[lilspaz68]

Re: Jitters flipped out tonight...

Yep been there done that. I adopted a much older little lady who used to bite me. I had her in with a very happy and youngish group and then tried to intro 2 more girls....she decided she hated the tilty girl (Faline didn't act like a proper rat at times) and there was some serious bloodshed. They lived together just fine for over a week and then they fought silently.

Talli

Faline and Dolci got along great with everyone else, but had to stay by themselves until Talli passed on.

There are other options you could try.

Since Jitters attacks right off the bat I would imagine its fearful aggression...gonna get "them" before they get me. You need to do neutral intro's first but you might want to do a water intro and see if that helps. You fill up the tub a couple of inches and put some "island" inthe middle large enough for them all to get up on and be close but not too close. The worry over the strange place/water keeps them from attacking each other. The aim with intro's is to have them stay together without aggression for as long as possible and finally Stranger Rat changes to "I know you...".

Then you can drain the tub and put a small plate/dish of baby food or baby cereal or soy milk (something they have to stay near each other to eat). This should distract them all enough, and then they'll intersperse that with licking the Nasty Wet off of themselves. See how this works.

Then there's the option of Rescue Remedy or Bach's Flower...used on pets to calm them down. I heard there's alcohol in it but I would imagine at this point that if it works go for it.

then there's a possibility of a spay, if her hormones are driving her. I wish I had spayed my Moth...she's an old happy singleton right now and I still feel guilty even though she has been thru 2 sets of cagemates she liked (water intro's for my Mothra).

 

[A1APassion]

Re: Jitters flipped out tonight...

I think we finally have it all sorted out. Thank goodness!

I spent countless hours on this all weekend. No housework or laundry was done but I have all of them back in the cage together as of 6:30 pm last night.

WHEW!!!

Now they go on a diet because I smeared every yummy substance I could think of on them. I have sticky rats with trace amounts of fat free Jiffy peanut butter, Polaner's Sugar Strawberry Preserves, Vanilla syrup, Olive Oil & baby cereal. Not sure if I should bath them again or slap them between two pieces of bread.... just kidding.

I pulled out & applied every intro suggestion ever offered. Not only were they covered in all these yummy foods but I stripped & clean the downstairs bathroom so that there were no ratty smells. We placed them in there so that we could closely watch them interact with one another as we smeared food on them. Once we did that we took turns watching them in the bath room while another human team was breaking down the cage & completely scrubbing it with scented cleaners followed by a good rinse & a couple hours of drying time in the sun. Then we scrubbed walls around where the cage sits & I even dragged out my mini carpet cleaning machine & washed the rugs in the immediate area.

Once the cage was dry it was put together with shelves in different locations & all brand new never used hammies made from a couple of my shirts. Nothing fancy for now, just wanted to remove everything that smelled like them.

So other than a few scratches on the nakeds & of course everyone being sticky to the touch all is right with the new crew.

Just before walking away last night Jitters came up to the very top shelf & I stuck my four fingers in the touch her. She laid across my hand very quietly & started to boggle... almost as a sign of thanking me for returning her to the others after being all alone & then telling me she was sorry for being such a PITA all weekend.

 

[lilspaz68]

Re: Jitters flipped out tonight...UPDATE

Great news Julia!!

 

[A1APassion]

Re: Jitters flipped out tonight...UPDATE

Fighting again tonight... they were perfect angels for the last two days & fights broke out again tonight.


Jitters & her sister went at again tonight & this time it was bloody... not helter skelter bloody but enough that I had to clean them up & put some antibiotic cream on them.

I pulled them out from the large pen & put them in individual bins until I can spend some time with them... too late tonight to drag out syrup & stuff.

This time it was definitely food related. I had gone in to give them some rolled oats & some small pieces of diced up veggies. Jitters & her sister are both hoarders it seems. So they grabbed food, ran with it & stashed a great deal of it. About 20 minutes after this, that is when I heard the fight. I was actually in the new chat room that was recently set up on here & had to run out of the room.

 

[A1APassion]

Well it took a few months but I finally have the girls living together.

Jitters & Jeeter-bug are biological sisters. I picked them up last fall when myself & I friend were looking for blue dumbo rex girls. Jeeter-bug went to her house & Jitters stayed with me. After a couple months the friend that had Jeeter-bug noticed her cold was not going away & other allergic symptoms become very troublesome. She noticed it was much worse when she got as opposed when she was away from home so she decided to make a dramatic reduction in her numbers before giving up completely on having rats altogether. Along with Jeeter-bug came 3 others, Fawn, Luna & Dunkin.

Ever since Jeeter-bug came back to me & I have been trying to get her & her sister to get along. They had some awful bloody fights... it was just them. Everyone else got along but as soon as the two sisters saw each other it was a "Steel cage battle". The innocent by-standers would flip & cling to the wals to stay away from the flying teeth & furballs rolling across the cage floors.

I had no choice but pull them apart. So for the last several months I've been playing musical rats... I would alternate everyone back forth & switch Jitter & Jeeter back & forth between the two cages & then switch out what room mate they would have so that the picture perfect socialization I had going on with everyone else did fail.

Well we finally have success I believe... we are back to 24 hours with everyone getting along with no scuffles.

WHEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[ration1802]

Well done

Lets hope they buck their furry little ideas up and stay getting along :lol:

 

[A1APassion]

well the peace treaty expired after mid night last night

the house was awakened by the sound of fighting girls once again... both have bloody ears & got some bites in on each others cheeks

I don't know whether I should give up or patch them both up & start over once again

I just don't get it... nobody else fights... just the two sisters!

It is really frustrating & I have nothing to fall back on to help me figure this odd behavior between these two out. I have 12 girls & the 1 neutered male that I really want & need to get together for convenience sake. I have the super cool massive cage that easily accommodates everyone & because of this silly fighting between the two I have to keep an additional small cage set up & constantly swap them out.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Does anyone have any creative suggestions? I've introduced 100's of rats & I have never had two that completely refused to get along like this. They would typically have issues with any rat I put with them but this isn't the case. These two have decided to target each other & they get along famously with every other freaking rat they come in contact with.