Rats? Please answer me.?

Question

My friends family has two rats. Two of the sweetest rats I have ever met.

This family does not want to keep their rats anymore, they adopted another dog and now have too many pets.

My younger brother has a rat who is full of spunk and does not like other rats and is happier living alone. So we cannot just adopt my friend's family's rats and put them with Smudge.

I want to adopt my friend's family's rats. Smudge and the rats would live in different cages, in different rooms.

The friend's family's rats fight often, also. So I have planned to try to adopt one of the rats, so they don't kill each other.

Although they fight they may have a special bond. I don't know if it would be smart to seperate the family's two rats.

What would happen if I only adopted one of the family's rats?

Would it become depressed?

Please help!

Answer 1

Get a large cage and adopt both.

Answer 2

possible since rats are social animals by nature.  maybe if you put brother's rat cage next to his cage every once in while, rat won't be so depressed.

Answer 3

no as long as it gets lots of attention

Answer 4

Adopt them both but buy an extra cage, so if they do fight then you can seperate them for a little bit of time.

Answer 5

I would recommend if you are going to adopt the rats you adopt them both.  Rats are sociable creatures and really like living with a buddy vs being alone (your brother's rat might be an exception).  It really depends on their fighting.  My two girls get into a tussle every day, but it's no big deal.  Neither draws blood or does any real harm.  If this is the case with the two rats involved, there's not a huge issue.  I'm sure you've had squabbles with your younger brother in the past. :D

Getting a larger cage might also be a possible solution.  You can check out this calculator to see if what they are in now is too small.  http://www.rattycorner.com/odds/calc.sht...

Hope that helps!

Answer 6

If the other family have two male rats, then you adopting a single would probably be a relief to him. If this is the case, they could be fighting for dominance. As long as you plan to give LOTS of attention and cage free time, then that would be fine.

I hope they do not have a mixed pair..they would have had babies by now. So, that is unlikely. If it's 2 females, they may skrimish because their cage is too small for both of them to have their own space. In this case a larger cage might solve the problem and adopting them both would be a good idea.

Answer 7

Do not separate them. What s*x are all the rats? Males will fight because they are easily upsetted, and seem to sort thier issues out in a physical manner. Fighting for males is normal. They will NEVER kill unless under severe stress, like in a really cramped cage, or have other health problems. And females as well fight normally, except females usually only bicker a bit without any real fighting.

I believe that because rats are social animals, you are actually depriving them of one of their needs by having them live alone. It's like feeding rats guinea pig food, it's just not the right care that they require. But I can understand if you have one rat who does not like others, it's hard to change them. I still don't think there really are any "lost cause" fighting rats though. I have 5 male rats living together now, and two of them were once living alone, labeled as though they could never live with any other rats again. Well, that changed with some patient, slow introducing, and now they get along pretty well together :) They still fight over food, but I just feed them seperately, and they love being, playing, grooming and napping together all other times.

It's also very important to have some conditions, for both males and females. The most likely reason they are fighting more than normal is either for food (if one is particularily pocessive, or if both are dominant and sort of clash), because their cage is too small, or because they are forced to share too many things. So just ensure that you have a very spacious, multi-leveled cage, with multiple hiding places and hammocks basically. You can feed them together if they are alright, but if they mostly fight around food, try feeding them on their own for a while and see if they improve.

But no, please do not separate them :( Most rats will become depressed just by moving to a different owner. Losing their life-long companion will be a horrible thing. Don't take them apart please.

Oh and thank you for adopting the other two :)

Answer 8

no as long as it gets lots of attention from you