So as some of you may know over the last month we have been extending out our rat family. Originally I was taking on two rescue brothers to join our 3 older boys but then I rescued a lone boy from pets at home and he was in a shocking way (and yes I am in talks with the manager). So our numbers rose to 6.
The small boy we rescued, Boomer, had scratches and sores when we brought him, I imagine these were brought about by self abuse. He had been on his own for an extended period and judging from his size he left mum very early. He had some real troubles socially interacting with our 3 big boys and would scream when the alpha male went near him. He also seemed very confused about walking around and exploring the cage he was in, he didn't seem to know how to climb and was very scared. We left Boomer in a smaller cage to wait until he could be introduced to some younger rats.
We picked up our two rescue brothers from a rattery in SW London and named them Helo and Crashdown (Crash lost his tail early on in life to an attack by a wild rat but it causes him no problems). They had been the result of a misexing in another pet shop and their pregnant mother had been taken in by the rattery. Mum was just a baby herself. They were introed very very quickly to Boomer and then a short while later we began to introduce them to our larger boys.
The intros went smoother than they had done before and everything was calm. The boys were then all put into the larger cage for about a week but things were still not quite right. Adama (the alpha) became quite territorial and whilst he was not drawing blood things were not happy in the cage so we made the decision two days ago to reduce the cage size to a third and give the boys some forced intro time. While some people may think this is cruel with rats it is often necessary to force the animals to bond in a smaller space and then reintroduce them to the larger cage where they will then all be friends. We used the cage shelves to reduce the area by a third and added just one water source, one food bowl and a litter tray.
We came downstairs this morning to find a beautiful rat heap which is what we were waiting for to show they have really bonded
All the stuff on the floor is the litter they have kicked out overnight probably in an angry mood because they have no toys
So here are some pictures of the beautiful boys when they were (all be it rather unhappily) in the larger cage and when we first got them and some of the bigger boys.
Caprica and xmas dinner
Cozy Crashdown
Baby Boomer
Helo
Crash and Helo
What you want to wake up to...
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