The Rat Room

A mod on the Rat Shack caught an awesome boggle fest on video. I had to share it. These boys are called the Rexzillas. They are somewhat bossy and bullies but they are quite content in their cage. Everyone knows their place and seems like a pretty good functional colony. This is evident in the video. When you see your rats, simply lying about, comfortable as can be, cuddling with a buddy or two and out pops the eyes… well, that’s happiness right there. The boggle happens when they are bruxxing harder than usual. It’s the motion of the jaw near the eyeballs. Happy little curly balls of goodness. I love these boys, they are full of character and charm. Good thing they are in the next country over from me… or there would be some ratnapping going on. lol
Thank you to Peggy (Hopefloats) from IN. This is truly a great boggling video.

Reading rat body language is an art. One that takes a lot of observation and even then, you have to be very observant to catch exactly the message being sent.
I adopted Turk, a lone male rat from the SPCA and two young boys from an online ad. The babies were young and were immediately placed with Turk. Life was good until the babies grew up. At 5 months they start to mature and develop their sense of entitlement. Where do they belong in the colony and how do they conduct themselves. These babies clearly had issues. They do not submit but yet won’t take full leadership. They have a lot of learning to do. Turk, took it upon himself to settle the boys but this became a tough job. He did what appeared to me something he felt needed to be done. He terrorized the babies and so earned his name Turk the Jerk. I would punish Turk, put him in his out time cage which didn’t seem to do anything. Turk in his role as teacher/dictator, became very stressed and developed respiratory issues. The poor boy was put on meds and has been on it ever since. I realized Turk could never be neutered and that left me with a huge dilemma. Watching the babies… I decided maybe I should neuter them. Maybe I should help those young ones deal with their stress better and see how that would affect Turk. Magnum and Marshall were both neutered. And like magic, Turk no longer terrorized them. All is quiet and peaceful again. All this time, I would use the time out cage with Turk when all along he was teaching the boys some manners. The boys didn’t understand this and would lash out. Marshall not so much as Magnum. The worst of it is that Magnum is a scared rat and when faced with flight or fight, he runs, then turns around and lashes, no questions asked. He’s still doing this and I hope with time, he will learn to settle down. Until then, it might be very difficult to bring my two colonies as one.
I’m glad though, that Turk is not a jerk. He’s my sweet boy. Who lived a lone life and now trying to be a good dad to the boys.
When things go awry in your cage, take time out to observe the relationship and dynamic of the colony. Be sure to pinpoint the real issue.

Turk

Magnum and Marshall, the day of the neuter. In their carrier.

Of course we already knew that.
But scientists put it to the test and have found rats to have empathy and pro-social behaviour. In the study, they trapped a cage mate in a tube, while the free rat had the choice to release the cage mate or move on to something else. On average the free rat, released his cage mate before doing anything else. The article goes more into details. There is also a video to show the difference the rats faced with a trapped cage mate, a trapped stuffed toy or nothing in the tube.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/334/6061/1427.full.html

Over the years, I’ve experienced my share of rat empathy and social capabilities. I remember once, my old girl Bijou was being harassed by 3 young bucks. My Mielle out of nowhere during out time must have sensed Bijou’s worried signals because she bounded back to the cage and found Bijou at the bottom. Mielle pushed the big bucks away and convinced Bijou to enter a tube by nudging her gently into it. When Bijou was in it, one end was already blocked, Mielle dutifully placed herself at the open end, daring any of the young boys to come near. That day, I knew just how special rats truly are.

A must read for all pet owners… a fantastic book by Karen Pryor. This book gives you an insight on how animals think. Animals can learn from us and are eager to do so. We are their teachers and we must do so gently and with lots of fun. Sure, animals can be trained using fear, pain and intimidation but why not do it with fun?
Not only can you train rats to do tricks but you can also shape their behaviour. You can help them figure out how to react differently. Instead of biting out of fear, you can click them away from the source.
My sister was having a lot of trouble doing intros with her group. Two males, both were neutered but Neko was literally launching himself onto Bruno. This was not good. I talked to my sister about clicker training her two boys into not wanting to hurt each other and to have a cue word that could be used to separate the two. This was something even I have never attempted and didn’t know how well it would take.
Nic used her tongue as the clicker. She used pumpkin seeds for treats and the cue word was off. The word was not introduced until the shaped behaviour was strong.
During out time, Nic watched the rats closely, when Neko moved close to Bruno, the slight turn of his head earned him a click and a treat. It didn’t take long for him to associate turning away from Bruno to a click and treat. He was doing it all the time. Finally, Nic added the word off to the turn away. Neko was having so much fun running to Bruno, sniffing him and turning away for his click and treat, it became a game. Then Nic worked on Bruno. She had both boys running to each other, sniffing and turning and running to her for the treat. She had all her rats moved in together within a week. Her intro attempts had started last July and she never could get beyond 2 or 3 days. Yet after only one week of clicker training they are living together. And Nic no longer needed the clicker or treats. The boys didn’t associate each other with aggression, it’s like they couldn’t remember why they didn’t like each other in the first place. But Nic wanted to see if a month later, the word Off would work. Sure enough…she yelled off and they turned away from what they were doing. Amazing!

The boys Neko and Bruno.

Recently on The Rat Shack, a member brought up the question about moving rats. Is it stressful on them, is it a good idea? From my experience, it all depends on the rat or the colony. Some rats are so bonded they really shouldn’t be moved away from their cage buddies. Yet there are other rats who really aren’t attached and don’t mind going through changes. There are also rats who need the simple routine in their lives and a change causes them much stress.
There comes a time when a move is necessary. This would be the time to observe your rats and really make sure that the move is required and that you won’t be posing too much stress on them. When should one consider a move? Some aging rats develop Hind End Degeneration. Once a rat has HED his habitat should be changed to accommodate him. A lot of people choose to create a retirement home for their oldies. Of course you shouldn’t pull your rat away from the colony to live alone but you observe your rats and find a buddy that would also benefit the move.
There might also come a time where in some cases, like what I chose to do was to pull a rat from a colony to pair up with a rat from a different colony in order to avoid a rat living alone. This I do with a lot of thinking and planning. I am usually totally against breaking up a colony. Rats bond and it would be a shame to break such bonds. So you observe your rats and you make sure that the rat has a good stable energy and temperament and wouldn’t mind so much the change.
Soon, I will be moving three girls from their single Critter Nation home into the colony cage. Intros are going so well, I know that the transition will go smoothly and will most likely be welcome by the three.

Here are some pics of the cages and of the rats exploring each other’s cages.

Sansa watching George explore her cage.

Bree exploring the soon to be her cage.

I’ve always been a huge advocate of only one sex homes or altering different sexes. It is human nature to want to reproduce and hook up with a mate. I’ve always had my females spayed so it was never an issue in my home. The primary reason for me was always to be very secure so accidentals litters are 100% prevented. In June I adopted some older males and didn’t need to have them neutered since my one female is spayed. But then I adopted 3 females, middle age I would say but certainly in their prime. They are awaiting their spay which is this coming week. (thank god) My rats are safely separated in proper cages so I’m not worried for an accidental mating. But… more so than anything else, is the changed behaviour in rats. They are constantly trying to get to each other. The one intact male is getting all stressed out over the smells of the girls. He is relentless and has become quite the bully. I’ve also noticed a slight change in the girls. They too are stressed out and needing to visit the intact males. People might not think their rats are stressed out due to the intact two sexes in the home, but don’t be fooled, they are. All animals left intact will have the natural need to mate. It’s a strong need and can change behaviour into an aggressive determination. All I can say is I can’t wait for my girls to be spayed. I’m not used to this kind of havoc, it’s quite unpleasant for all involved.

George and Sansa

I moved everything to familiar ground after only 3 days of neutral. Things were moving along well. I did a partial familiar ground where almost all the toys were blocked off. Things got more tense with Ferdinand. He really has low self confidence and is really bothered by the bully boys Teddy and George. I wouldn’t want to see him with real alpha boys. Teddy and George although bossy are really sweet and if the rat submits, they become great friends. My resident rats are awesome and really couldn’t care less about the newbies taking over, this made things much easier. So my real focus remains on Ferd. I decided that the only way I could move forward was with full familiar ground and that worked out much better for Ferd cause he has much more room and it took the focus off of him. Teddy and George love to run around, explore and claim their land. I knew though that beyond this point it was going to be a challenge as the next step is move in. That will not happen for some time, poor Ferd just can’t handle it. So instead I decided to try Ferd with the residence all the while continuing intros.

I finally was able to capture one of my rats boggling. Unfortunately, I was using the video on my camera and not my real video recorder so the quality is pretty poor. You sure do get the essence of the boggle anyways. That’s Gera, the rex guy having a good boggling. He’s quite content, in the cube, next to his long time companion little Meeko. Those two came to me together. I am quite pleased to see Gera boggling. I’m in the middle of doing intros and to see Gera still completely content and unaffected by intros simply warms my heart.
So sit back and enjoy the boggle!

Having helped raise a handful of litters and watching them raised by a friend, I’ve long since realized that mom rats have a definite impact on the social and behavioural development of the pups. Happy moms will have happy pups. Scared moms will instill that fear and anxiety in the pups as well. A pet rat will do better with a happy mom but in the wild, moms must raise their pups to deal with all the many stresses found in their environment. Mom’s effect on the pups is in part due to epigenetics as we see from this study. http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/epigenetics/rats/
Mom rats lick their pups which causes a change in the rats’ metabolome altering their epigenome which results in more docile behaviour. So in essence, if you have a female rat with a calm and gentle nature she will nurture her babies into becoming more docile rats.
This might explain how some rats are naturally skittish and why in some cases no amount of human interactions and socializing will change your pet rat into a more social rat. It’s up to you to manage your friendship with this rat as best as the rat can handle. Many skittish rats live happy lives listening to their humans talk to them, sing to them or just being near them. They don’t need the constant cuddling and touching that some rats do.
All in all, you must accept your rat for who he/she is… because in the end, it’s how he/she was raised.

There always has to be an alpha, someone to lead and tell the others what to do in order to maintain stability.
I’ve noticed that Chief didn’t really step up to the plate during intros, not when Max was around. Max didn’t do much either because at the time he wasn’t feeling very well, in fact he was dying from intestinal tumours. So little Meeko took the reigns and didn’t do a good job. He was jumpy and flighty but tried very hard to control Pony. But Pony didn’t need any controlling. He was being respectful and stable. But still without a clear alpha, Meeko was lost. After Max left, Chief took on the role. Although he was always alpha in his colony, he didn’t overstep for Max’s sake during the intros. Now that Max had left Chief in charge of it all, Chief puffed up and sidled Pony. Pony puffed up and sidled back, then both boys relaxed and stayed next to each other… I believe each having a mutual respect of each others place in the pack. When Meeko tried to rule Pony, he did so miserably, Pony ended up in a rat ball fight with Meeko, cutting him up pretty badly. Poor Meeko looked like he had gone to war and lost. The wounds were all superficial but it looked awful on the nakie. Since Chief took over, Meeko immediately calmed down and went back to the happy bouncy baby boy. The intros are going so well, I’m actually amazed at it all. I’m still keeping it familiar ground with toys for another week… then it will be the big cage scrub down… Move in date: Good Friday… let it be good indeed.