[bogglesandbruxes]

Hi all,

One of my rats, Pistol, had to be seperated from his cagemates due to his hormonally driven aggression. He was injuring and harassing them.

His neuter is today, and I am wondering when I should reintroduce him to the other boys. They are littermates, and so they've been together since birth. During seperation, I still kept the enclosures in the same room. Splinter has seemed indifferent and honestly just curious about Pistol, and Razor doesn't go near Pistol but has never been aggressive to him (those two friendly boys have had a couple opportunities to sniff at Pistol's enclosure). So they are definitely still familiar with each other.

My question is, after Pistol recovers, should I just allow them to free roam together? Or should I do an entire introduction process as if they're strangers?
Also, what can I do if he still isn't getting along with the other rats? At the moment I would not be able to afford more than 3 rats, so I wouldn't have much opportunity to try out different friends for him (due to how expensive their vet care is where I'm located.. the neuter alone was estimated to be $450 - $591. It just wouldn't be smart for me to bring home more rats at the moment.)

 

[allanimalhouse]

If it were me, I would start over like it was a new introduction, after letting the neutered one rest for a week or two. If he still wasn’t getting along with the other rats right away, I would just keep their cages in the same room, and keep him solo but increase my time one on one. If they do good in free roam, but not their cage, I would keep them in separate cages but let them have free roam together with supervision. If he is just too aggressive I would just keep him solo and reorganize my entire life so I can spend more time with him and not feel guilty about him being lonely lmao. That’s just what I would do if I was in your situation.

 

[allanimalhouse]

But, hopefully it won’t come to all that, I have two girls and a senior male that needed to be reintroduced. I separated them for awhile and everything is back to normal.

 

[ratbusters]

Hi there.
I was under the impression that the behavioural changes after a rat neuter take about two weeks to kick in, as in, their aggression takes about that long to settle down. (You might like to have a bit of a look around on the internet to verify is this is right.)
So maybe give it a couple of weeks, then re-introduce him? I would probably try to put them together for free roam and see how that goes - if he gets a bit huffy its easy to "scoop and dump" back into his cage.
Hope his neuter went well.

 

[bogglesandbruxes]

Hi there.
I was under the impression that the behavioural changes after a rat neuter take about two weeks to kick in, as in, their aggression takes about that long to settle down. (You might like to have a bit of a look around on the internet to verify is this is right.)
So maybe give it a couple of weeks, then re-introduce him? I would probably try to put them together for free roam and see how that goes - if he gets a bit huffy its easy to "scoop and dump" back into his cage.
Hope his neuter went well.

Hi, thank you! His neuter did go well and he's healing up very nicely. 🥰 I will reintroduce them probably toward the end of next week or a little late!