food and aggression

[Petunia]

ok I am thinking my questions must be too long..........

my girls are getting aggressive about their food- Paige especially and she is HUGE so she's certainly not starving

this is more than the grabbing for the food and pushing and shoving, they get into fights at the food bowl


should I stop feeding them any treats at all and just give them lab blocks?

or feed them all from their own dish (all 6 of them LOL I can see it now, six little plates, placed far apart so no one squabbles with their neighbor :giggle: )

I've had to do this with cats, but geez, am I really gonna have to do it for the rats too?
:?

Someone, I think it may have been Paige, took a chomp out of Smidgen.

they all seem to be on edge lately..........

any ideas?

 

[jorats]

My Simon was food aggressive and this is how I stopped it: I never give treats, not unless it's out time and we are doing stuff as part of playing.
When it was time to feed the rats, adding new blocks to the dish or putting down their plate of veggies, I would pull Simon out and make him watch them while we hung out together for about 10 minutes watching his buddies get the good stuff. Then I would place him in a far corner of the cage with his own bowl of veggies. I did that for about a month and the totally stopped his food aggression.
You could give that a try and see how that goes.

 

[rattytat]

Thanks for that information. I'm experiencing the same thing with two of my males who are cage mates - one who has health issues and appetite has declined. The other has begun eating everything available to him and has gained too much weight recently. He's almost 700 gms! And, the worst of it is, he has become really aggressive about food - grabbing and fighting for anything available. I'll try your method, Jo - thanks for the advice.

 

[Petunia]

hmm ok, I can try that, only problem I can see is that Paige is the one rat who does not tolerate being held
she'll jump out of my hands- regardless of whether there's anything nearby to safely jump onto!

:roll:

I'll have to set something up for her, a little table I guess? but she will probably just jump off of that.........
hmm
maybe put her in the g pig cage?

this isn't going to upset her more? (I am used to cats, if you don't do what a cat wants, it can actually backfire, unless you are able to convince the cat that THEY want to do what you want them to do)

Yes it's true, I'm a wimp and a pushover.......


I hate to make any one un happy or upset anyone.

I"m working on it, though.

 

[jorats]

It would be best if you are physically holding her, if she struggles too much, set her down near the cage, not on the cage. She's got to see that you are in charge and she'll go in when you say so.