New Rats Blog - Pt 3

Ok, so yesterday we tried our first introductions of the boys and girls. we decided to do this in the bath as it needs to be done in neutral territory in a safe, escape free environment. we set the bath up with some matting on the floor, some toys and treats and armed ourselves with water pistols to break up any fighting that should occur. put the boys in and they had a little wander about and then nervously put the girls in. at once the size difference between them became glaringly apparent. they boys are about 600g and the girls about 300g! so i was really nervous as if any fighting did break out then the boys could probably really hurt the girls.

however, i needn´t have worried...the girls ran staright over to the boys, sniffed them and then just ran around exploring! periodically the girls would go back over to the boys for more sniffing but that was it. no squeeling, no fighting, nothing :-) must admit that the boys looked a bit scared and confused but all in all a very successful first intro.

going to repeat this again tonight and then tomorrow i´m going to put them in the run together. this is an area that both groups have been in individually so we may get a small amount of territorial aggression but to be honest, i doubt it. the boys are far to laid back and the girls are just too nosey! therefore, i hope to be able to put them all in the same cage on saturday morning. i will give the cage a good clean and re-arrange first so that it doesn´t smell totally of boys (and therefore again possibly triggering some territorial aggression) and the theory is that if you do it in the morning they will be sleepy and not so interested in running round and possibly fighting as rats tend to be more active in the evening, so fingers crossed! so far so good though :-)