Introducing Rats to Each Other

After how long can you tell if Rats will fight?

I've had a female, and just got another today. The first is a little bigger than the new one, and I introduced them out of the cage. Then I put both in. They seemed fine, but every now and then the first would walk up and paw at the new one and mouth at her muzzle.

Is she just trying to play? Or establish dominance? I don't want to leave them in the same tank overnight. So I found the new one a different cage.

If you can help it'd be awesome!

Thanks,
Melanie

usually when introducing a new rat the new one introduced will usually be looked over by the other rat, sniffing, cleaning and such, this usually causes a little uproar between the two, i guess its not nice to be inspected by a current resident, rats are social animals so they often adjust well to another, you will definately know if they are fighting, a little tumble may occur when first introduced but thats usually because one wants to inspect the other and they arent cooperative. Other then that they generally get along, if you had them in breeding colonies you would see females caring for one anothers babies, and males really don't do much although they may come by the babies or stay away. I breed mine and seeing them care for each other is really neat, I have even had foster rats, where they take in another females babies if i put them with her, even had some foster mice on occasion. Need any other help you can PM me.

Amelia

Erik Spisak Tropicals

I have a lot of experience with House Mouse (Mus musculus) colonies and limited experience with Norway Rat (Rattus norvegicus) colonies. They seem very much the same in the socialization regard. I have found thgat when introducing one rat to another the females are the most agrressive towardeither sex if the newcomer is put into the habitat of the resident rat. This is also very true of mice. What I do when introducing a new one to an existing colony is to set up a second enclosure, place the new on in there, leave it alone for an hour or so, then place the resident rodent(s) into that new enclosure with the new comer. Leave them in there for several hours with plenty of food and fresh water, they seemingly quickly get used to one another with less nipping and fighting. If you only have one enclosure, take it an clean it well to rid it of most of the scent of the resident rat, then place the new rat into that for a while, leaving the resident rat in a temporary holding container. Then after about 2 hours put the resident rat back into its old residence where the newcomer has been for a while. This usually works well.