Fighting -- normal?

[ametropia]

The longer time goes on, the more I realize that my crew are not all sisters.

Background under the spoiler.. I know, I type a lot :lol:

[spoiler:2o0o0ewm]When I brought them home, I assumed they all were.. two are berkshires and two are hoodeds but I just thought they all came from the same litter. The dark parts of their fur all generally look the same. I'm not very good with rat genes/colors following it all and what the chances are of litters becoming, so I was just guessing.

Never the less, they were all adopted together and no one told me otherwise, because they probably thought they were as well. They came from a pet-store that was supplied by "a breeder" whatever that means.. no other details were given. I'd imagine they went to the pet-store all together from the "breeder", I use that term loosely.

Anyway. The two hoodeds are the same in personality (Friendly, more calm, more outgoing) and the two berkshires are the same in personality (more skiddish, more reserved, very nervous). Also, despite the fact that they all sleep together sometimes, other times I'll find the girls naturally separate themselves: the berkies on the bottom and the hoodeds on top.[/spoiler:2o0o0ewm]

... and on top of it all, we have the fighting.

I've never seen rats fight before, so this is new to me. It seems very, very mild. My husband calls it "wrestling". And I never see the berkshires fighting each other or the hoodeds fighting each other.. it's always one brown and one white going at it, again making me think they are from two different litters.

But they all normally play together and eat together and sleep together.. but them BAM. Fighting breaks out and I see a little ball-of-rats rolling across the cage :lol:

My concern today was when I watched one of the berks climb over a plastic wall, and one of the hoodeds bit on to her tail to stop her and drag her back. Eeek! No one made any noise.. does that mean it wasn't a hard bite? Then they got into a scrap, rolled around a bit, one pinned the other (almost always the berkshires that pin the hoodeds even though Mrs. Brisby is the biggest and is one of the hooded girls and I think she could take all the others!), and then it just looked like.. the one on top was "cleaning" the one on the bottom, and then they walked away.

Is this sort of thing fairly normal? Is there any reason I should be concerned?

 

[Joanne]

It sounds wonderful! They can even squeak, etc and not be serious about it. It's all playing.
A real fight you would recognise just by the different intensity. The body language would be VERY tense, fur would be flying, and the vocalisations would have a very different tone.
Do you know dogs?
It's like dogs - my dogs play a lot. Someone who didn't know dogs would get very upset if they saw my dogs going at it. They wrestle, growl, bark, pin each other, chase each other, teeth gnashing as they go face-to-face. But for someone who knows dogs, they know that they're just playing and it's all in fun.
I guess it's mainly in the body language. When you've had a animal for a while, you start to read their body language and recognise how the animal is feeling, etc.

 

[hopefloats]

Toby my boy, he pulls any rat that walks away from him with any part of the body that he can grab. He has pulled ears, tails, feet, legs, body, all of it. Never left a mark.

If one of the girls are in heat, they can fight. Mine do it every time one of the girls are in heat. but only certain 3 of the 5 it happens too lol. I think maybe the girls think it is a threat to their mating, not that they do, that another girl is in heat, because these 3 fight every time one of them is in heat.

 

[jorats]

Dragging a rat is definitely not aggression. The ball of fur, that would be a more serious fight but if no one gets cut, then I'd let them settle it on their own. Sounds like you have a lot of play fighting.

 

[ametropia]

phew, I feel so much better :lol: I was trying to figure out how to break them up or if I had to break them up, my husband kept saying "Nah they'll work it out" haha. I guess he was right :mrgreen:

I never even thought about the in-heat thing. They're all unaltered so that's definitely a possibility.

Yeah no one ever comes away with any injuries, and as soon as one gets pinned, it seems like that's the end of the "match", like they have little ratty rules for fighting or something

(The first rule of rat-fight-club is.. you never talk about rat-fight-club)

 

[hopefloats]

they do, well most of them.. toby never leaves a mark on any that he pulls, but he is not letting anyone walk away till he is done playing LOL

My girls fight on occasion, never anything major it is a few rat balls, if it gets to bad, which is rare, I just clap my hands or call their name.

 

[ametropia]

Sometimes I'll call out "Hey, no fighting!" and they'll break it up :lol:

 

[hopefloats]

I like when they really learn their name, and you call it out, then they look at you like hey it wasnt me! Isis does that all the time! Glad your girls are doing well. How is mrs. Brisby doing now? she was sick right?

LOL i do read all the post i just dont respond to all

 

[ametropia]

This morning we were cautiously thinking we heard an improvement in Mrs. Brisby's breathing, but I wanted to wait til I got home later. We also brought the Baytril home with us after work. This evening, we are sure of it, there is definitely an improvement, but we're obviously going to give her all the Baytril and the doxy still and we're being very cautiously-optimistic.

I'm normally not an optimist, but I find it hard not to feel happy about small improvements in my pets and hope it means good things <3

Luckily with or without the breathing trouble she is still just as active as ever. Still eating, playing, drinking, sleeping well. And she's still our most social, outgoing ratty who is not at all scared outside of her cage unlike the others. She's just wonderful so I hope we really are seeing an improvement and it isn't just a fluke "good day".

And I still think she could take her cage-mates.. I think she's throwing the fights LOL :lol:

 

[hopefloats]

aww such a sweet girl to toss the fights to build the others confidence up Hopefully it is improvement and not a fluke!

 

[TorachiKatashi]

My boys (brothers) have those play-fights all the time. Same thing, tail tugging and rolling around and pinning, but then they'll stop and spend the next five minutes cleaning each other. The only time I've ever really felt the need to break them up was when Oskar pinned Vin in their water dish and they were making a big mess. Poor guy was dripping wet.

I've never actually seen a serious rat fight, but I imagine it would be very loud and messy and obvious.

 

[ametropia]

Thanks for all the responses, I appreciate the ease-of-feedback I get from you guys even though I'm probably asking the same-old questions everyone's heard before :lol:

With my anxiety problems I worry about everything, so even though I might have a feeling that "yes, this is perhaps normal," I just feel sooo much better asking and getting feedback.

 

[hopefloats]

I am sure they love the same old questions, you should see what I ask or show pictures of! I am still adjusting to having male rats around LOL

We love stories, pictures and questons, I love reading them because then when I do stumble across it, it is easier to deal with or you have a little knowledge.

 

[lizmo1221]

I've never actually seen a serious rat fight, but I imagine it would be very loud and messy and obvious.

Believe me, when a rat is truly in pain (weather from a bad fight, an innocent bite in the wrong spot, getting caught on something, etc), you WILL know. The screams of pain and/or fear are almost enough to make your heart stop.