Ratty problems?

Question

i own 3 male rats around 6 months old. two have lived together since babys. these two have recently been fighting. the largest one is not allowing the other to eat food and treats. the other rat i have is very aggresive , attacking man and rat. i have built them a four storey 5ft cage and have seperated the top part for the very aggresive rat. has any one got any advice about these 3? i dont want 3 very lonely rats!

Answer 1

Oh, rats!

Answer 2

3 male rats together when they are young is fine, but as they mature the testosterone rises (like all males!) and they will fight to the death, they are communal animals requiring females (like all males!) their community has no balance, hence the fighting and aggressive behavior, you must separate them, or get rid of 2 them. lol

Answer 3

Sounds like their hormones have gone into their 'teenage stage'. Neutering the aggressive one (is the one stopping them eating another rat? ) or all 3 sounds like the way to go. I've just had two of my boys done so waiting to see if they calm down. 6 months is a great age to get males neutered at as this s when they just start to behave hormonally. Leaving it longer will increase the occurrence of learned behaviour which is harder to stop. My boys are 1 year old so I am hoping we haven't left it too long.

You are definately right to not want lonely rats. I'd recommend joining a rat forum where you can get some more advice and perhaps some rat vet recommendations from people in your area.

good luck

Answer 4

Rats, like a lot of other animals, tend to fight over territory.  Mainly for breeding purposes or dominance reasons.  If the cage was too small before, it might have been because one wants to have more room.

I would suggest you introduce them to each other like they were rats that had never seen each other before.  This is a website that'll tell you how to do that for different reasons.

http://ratguide.com/care/behavior/introd...

Rest assured that, even if your rats never get along with each other again, none of them will suffer as long as you give each one attention and love.  They will learn to make friends with you and move on.  ^^

Answer 5

I believe I answered this before. It sounds like the rat that is attacking people and other rats is overly hormonal. The only way to solve this is to have him neutered.

I don't agree with Nicole that rats can happily be kept alone. People attention is not the same as same species interaction. Keeping a rat alone is a /very last resort/. If neutering doesn't work, you may have to keep the aggressive rat alone.

Information on fixing rats: http://www.petinfopackets.com/rats/rathe...