[Summer102]

;My two rats, Sugar and Spice, were fine when I first got them about 8 weeks ago but, lately they have been getting into fights. The first fight happened about a month ago when I was not home but my sister said she heard noises coming from my rats, who are usually very quiet. When she checked on them they were rolling around and like sqeaking at each other. They stopped  only a couple seconds after they started. When I got home, Sugar had a lump on the joint of one of her toes. After a week, the swelling went down and everything was ok for a while. Then the second fight happened a couple of days ago. This time I was in the room. Spice started sqeaking at sugar and they both started wrestling. The fight only lasted a couple of seconds and it was too short for me to stop them. Sugar had a cut or scrape on her tail that wasn't very deep but she was holding her tail like it hurt. I took sugar out of the cage and cleaned the wound with first water and after a disinfectant ointment so that it would have less of a chance to get infected. I do not know what to do now. I don't know whether I should separate Sugar and Spice and put them in separate cages or if I should keep the in the same cage??

 

[Isamurat]

How old are the girls?

Rats do tend to squabble a bit and around 4 months they tend to start establishing their adult hierarchy which can lead to more serious fighting than previous. However they do tend to need to get it over with and if the injuries aren't bad then I would leave them to it and it should settle down in a few weeks. If your concerned or feel the injuries are serious enough to intervene then I would go back to basics, this means taking out most of the cage furnishings, especially anything that is enclosed, and ideally moving them to a smaller cage or one section of there exisiting cage. This gives them a smaller space to sort things out, which actually reduces the risk of injury and also helps them sort things out faster.

 

[Summer102]

Sugar and spice are about 7 months old. I will try your suggestion too.