# what to do with a rat BULLY????



## devilsofdarkness (Mar 26, 2006)

Hi all ive got 13 rats .....6 does in 2 seperate cages so 3 in each and 7 males in 3 seperate cages ...now in general they are all best cage buddies except for one female in one of my girl cages....Nawty is a husky rat who is 5 months old and right little cow to the two other girls she lives with....She constantly picks on one of the girls....I know and understand a lot of rats bicker and argue and i am perfectly happy to let them sort it out most of the time...however, Nawty is becoming very nasty biting, scratching, pinning the other girl down and generally being very aggressive to her.....I have taken nawty out of that cage and tried her with the other girls and she does the same to the other rats in that cage...when she is out of the cage she is a darling and very gentle but i need ideas please.....I have also segregated her to her own cage to give the other girls a break but I dont like her to be on her own and she almost pines to be back with others.....Is there anything I can do to calm her down a bit?? I admit that I do get a bit concerned that she is going to seriously hurt one of the others and wanna stop any probs before the occur


HHHEEELLLLPPP PLEASE!!!

Thanks all

Debi


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## Esarosa (Jul 13, 2007)

Pinning is completely natural for ratties whether playing or trying to ascertain dominance. Has she drawn blood? At first i thought ghost was trying to bite our other rats and it turned out she was just grooming them pretty aggresively. Heard it called barbering, where the dominant rat grooms subordinates and creats sort of greasy looking partings if that makes any sense. If she's drawn blood and is being vicious i've heard of the odd person spaying, though for me personally that's quite a major operation, that i'd only consider as a very last resort. With mine i go by the no blood no foul rule. However rough they play i leave them to it providing they don't get very aggressive with it. 
Also heard of some people having a water spray bottle by the cage so if they start really fighting you can seperate them. As most rats will stop to groom themselves apparantely. 
Sorry I can't be of more use. Have you tried fancy-rats.co.uk or Ratville they might have some completely different ideas.


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## Andatariel (Jul 15, 2008)

One of my rats started that when when he was around that age, are you putting her in with cage mates that are older/bigger than her?
Apparently the reason for Joey's behaviour was that he was trying to assert dominence because he was the youngest and littlest.

I used to let him stay in the cage because I hadn't got another option aside from the snip and I didn't want to do that.
But when he started attacking I'd take him out and put him into a laundry crate (a seperate but empty cage would be better but I didn't have one nor the money/space for one) for ten minutes and then let him back in the cage afterwards.
Eventually he learnt that if he attacked he was taken out and put somewhere boring and he stopped doing it.

(It's only a suggestion and I was following vets advice before anyone attacks me for this, if it was a bad thing to do can you tell me nicely) ((sorry I've seen people getting ripped into in other threads and I'd rather people didn't do it too me))


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## fatratsandcheesekk (May 18, 2008)

nobbys been doing this for a while towards rex with humping and started towards iggy the king but i put him in our quaranteen cage for 24 hours and he hasnt done anything for 3 weeks


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## devilsofdarkness (Mar 26, 2006)

thanks all for the advice...I have been trying the spray bottle routine since i first started keeping rats almost 10 years ago and normally it works brilliantly.....with her however, nah no chance!! lol Ive done the quarantine thing.....Im now left wondering wether Nawty has hit social maturity and is purely trying her luck at being the dominant female in cage.....she is the youngest in the cage with the other girls being over a year old but she has lived with them since i brought her home aged 8 weeks so they are used to each other and this is what is leaving me to believe that Nawty is trying her luck......Maestro, my black berskhire that she lives with has however, since last night now been showing signs of putting her in her place so I feel I will leave them as they are, keeping an eye out for any further aggression and deal with that should it occur.....

Thanks all again

Debi


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