cage within a cage?

[Tarah]

i just got an email from a girl i bought a cage from, however i don't know the answer to her question..

she just got a younger rat, and is looking to introduce them to her other girls (between five months, and a year age range. four of them) she wants to know if she can place the young girl in a smaller cage within her large one. She's thinking that this would be a good way for the girls to get to know each other, and the other girls to realize there's another female going to move in. Would this be a good idea?

 

[minuke99]

Personally, I don't think that's a very good idea. An injury could occur if anyone decides to get nasty. And it wouldn't take much for a tail to get snagged or even ripped.

Plus....the cage for the new one would have to be pretty small, and that would not be fair to the new girl.

When I've done intros I've always placed cages side by side, so they can 'talk' and smell each other. But the cages are at least an inche apart just to avoid possible injuries.

I believe there are some good threads on here about how properly do intros.

 

[Tarah]

oh i know that.
she only asked me this particular question, and i doubt there's a thread about this.

 

[littledevils]

Not a good idea at all.. the cage and rat would be in the territory of her other rat and that could potentially lead to very bad injuries.

One of our fosters recently made a mistake and put two cages too close together... and her own rat bit one of her foster rats real bad... to the point where the little one needed surgery and had to have one of his fingers amputated....

 

[Tarah]

awh, i'll let her know.

 

[jorats]

Yep, I'd say that's not a good idea either.

 

[sausage4ever]

I put cages inside cages when I want to have an extra area for the rats or the moce to play in. It's like a really cool shelp but if it's for intro's I wouldn't do it.

 

[Rachael]

Please don't!
They could rip their paws and legs and generally hurt themselves. No....

 

[SQ]

as previously said, this is a very dangerous idea.

 

[lilratsy43]

I made this mistake with my first intros, which is probably why they took sooooooo long. Lucky nothing bad happened from it. I think it just made them more angry, but in the end Zorri and Suri became the best of friends and actually they wanted nothing to do with anyone else while they were together.