[Rattienewby]

For 5 weeks now we have been trying to introduce our new dumbo rat to our family of 3 rats. Millie, the dumbo, is currently living in our travel cage and is nearly 3 months old. Our other 3 rats, Penelope, Piper and Pepper, are living in our critter nation cage. Well we are having lots of trouble getting them to get along. Millie is SUPER active as she is all alone in the travel cage while the others are more calm and collective.

Penelope is the oldest (14 months) and the least active. She has never been territorial and welcomed piper and pepper in with open arms when we introduced them this past spring after her sister passed away. Penelope is very human friendly and loves attention from us! She by far does the best with Millie.

Piper and Pepper are 8 months old and seem to be somewhat shy. When we try to pick them up they sometimes try to run away or hide, not all the time though. They also seem to be somewhat territorial and a little more active than Penelope but at the same time they aren't as human friendly.

Well when we try to get them to play Millie just runs around like crazy. This is likely due to her living by herself so when she gets out with the others she gets so excited. This leads to Millie sometimes fighting with Piper and Pepper. Sometimes Millie will get her fur pulled out and this last time I noticed that Millie had a gash in her back. It's not bleeding out so it should heal quickly if we read correctly. But now because of this we do not know what to do anymore. We want to get Millie in the cage with them, but we are almost out of options.

We are thinking about taking Piper and Pepper out of the cage and putting Millie in the cage with Penelope for a little while (week or 2) to see if Millie can become friends with Penelope. But we just do not know. We do not want to get rid of Millie but that option is unfortunately on the table if it comes to it as we simply have no space to house another set of rats permenantly in a 2nd cage in our small apartment.

Can anybody help us? We really need all the help we can get right now

 

[rats-alive-at-55]

The problem might be territorial if you are trying to put Millie into the other rats' cage. At the rescue I volunteered with, they would put two rats together in a neutral place and watch them carefully. You could use a bathtub, or a bathroom. If you introduce her to the others one at a time and they all get along, that's good news. If Millie gets along with each rat individually, and before you put them in the CN, do a deep clean. Take all the rats out and clean it very very well. When you put it back together, change the environment. Add new toys that none of the rats have seen, move the litter boxes around, put in new hammocks, move the shelves to the opposite sides, etc. The idea is that the rats will be so busy exploring their new cage that they will ignore the new rat. Last August I adopted 4 girls that had been living together, two other girls that had been together, and a neutered male that had not been with any other girls. I actually didn't even do the intro part, I just put them all in the same new CN cage. There were scuffles, forced groomings, and squeeking, but nothing serious. Each group had their alpha and they all just had to work it out. It has been two months now and everyone is still getting along. Be sure to supervise though, no one wants your rats to hurt each other.

C in C

 

[Isamurat]

It sounds like Millie has too much energy and the older rats are getting annoyed trying to catch up with her and show her whose boss. This is a natural part of establishing a heirachy and sometimes they need a little help to get things sorted in a safe way. I'd recommend having a read of this link . The first page is a lot of information to bear in mind and think about when introducing. Then i'd start by trying a carrier or small space method of introducing. This tends to be very reliable and will help your older girls figure out what to do with the whirlwind which is Millie

 

[Rattienewby]

Thanks for responding. I should have included details on what we have done as far as introductions. The first intro was in the bathroom with all 3 girls and Millie. We quickly realized Millie was a tad scared so we scaled back for a couple weeks and had her only 1 on 1 for most play time, occasionally bringing a 2nd girl in for just a couple of minutes. Except for Millie being a bit active and annoying the older girls a bit they got along fine in the bathroom. We had resumed play time with all 4 in the last week and they have done very well overall. Occasional power grooming, etc but we have tried to end play time before anything bad happens. Last night really came out of nowhere but was a huge setback. Fortunately already today Millie is looking so so much better