Hi,
This might be long so I’ll put a TL;DR at the end of it. I do have a slight suspicion to what may be causing Loki to act out the way he is.
After giving my two rats, Loki and Obi a bath today after finding mites, everything was fine for the first half an hour or so before Loki’s attitude just completely changed. Before the bath they were both in a small pet carrier that I kept them in whilst I was bleaching their cage and everything was fine.
I want to mention that they’ve both had mites before and plenty of baths, so that’s not what affected Loki. He’s also always been the more submissive one.
It started with Loki running maniacally around the hideaway Obi was resting in for a minute straight, trying to get in, every time I put my hand in to try and calm him down he just went haywire on my hand and kept nipping on it (didn’t draw blood, he just kept ‘aggressively’ nipping on it.) At that point I had no idea why he was acting like that so I freaked out myself.
I gave him a piece of my cereal to see if he’d calm down. I gave one to Obi too, to which Loki dropped his, snatched the one Obi was eating and left his original one alone. This is extremely unusual behaviour for him.
Anyway, I thought maybe he wanted to be close to Obi, so I put Loki inside with him, and that’s when I realised he was trying to bite or nip at Obi’s stomach or crotch? I’m not exactly sure where he wanted to get to since that’s when I separated them for the first time.
I took Loki and put him on my bed to hopefully relax. He was completely normal with me, grooming me, exploring around the bed- he was acting as usual. I had him out for about 30 minutes before I put him back with Obi, he went straight back to trying the bite Obi and started to chase him around. They were letting out very loud shrieks that I’ve only ever heard once or twice- but those times they sorted it out and left each other alone, unlike this time where if I didn’t separate them once again there would have definitely been blood shed.
This time I took Obi out who was clearly shaken up, he hid under the covers and I consoled him for a while until he started coming out and exploring. It was about 40-50 minutes later when I put him back with Loki who seemed to be constantly on guard. Once again, he tried going at Obi.
That time, I had enough. I’ve got a double critter nation so I just reversed the top platform to close the top opening and separated their food, gave them each a water bottle/bowl, toilet and an equal amount of toys and hideaways. It’s been about half an hour and Obi’s finally peacefully resting whilst Loki’s still running around.
Right, so I have a slight suspicion to what might be going on. About a week or so (give or take) Loki started to develop a cyst-like bump in the top corner of his eye, for the past few days he’s been completely fine, acting normal, eating, drinking etc...However because of what happened tonight, I believe he either might be in pain or just acting out because of the cyst thing? I do have an appointment tomorrow evening with the vet for the bump so I’ll be sure to mention what happened today.
But what else could this be if not the bump?
TL;DR: my rat Loki has suddenly become very aggressive to his cage mate (brother) and has constantly tried nipping him in either the stomach/crotch area. Even after being apart for over an hour. He has a cyst-like growth next to his eye that he’s getting checked out tomorrow, could that be why? If not, why is he acting like this?
This might be long so I’ll put a TL;DR at the end of it. I do have a slight suspicion to what may be causing Loki to act out the way he is.
After giving my two rats, Loki and Obi a bath today after finding mites, everything was fine for the first half an hour or so before Loki’s attitude just completely changed. Before the bath they were both in a small pet carrier that I kept them in whilst I was bleaching their cage and everything was fine.
I want to mention that they’ve both had mites before and plenty of baths, so that’s not what affected Loki. He’s also always been the more submissive one.
It started with Loki running maniacally around the hideaway Obi was resting in for a minute straight, trying to get in, every time I put my hand in to try and calm him down he just went haywire on my hand and kept nipping on it (didn’t draw blood, he just kept ‘aggressively’ nipping on it.) At that point I had no idea why he was acting like that so I freaked out myself.
I gave him a piece of my cereal to see if he’d calm down. I gave one to Obi too, to which Loki dropped his, snatched the one Obi was eating and left his original one alone. This is extremely unusual behaviour for him.
Anyway, I thought maybe he wanted to be close to Obi, so I put Loki inside with him, and that’s when I realised he was trying to bite or nip at Obi’s stomach or crotch? I’m not exactly sure where he wanted to get to since that’s when I separated them for the first time.
I took Loki and put him on my bed to hopefully relax. He was completely normal with me, grooming me, exploring around the bed- he was acting as usual. I had him out for about 30 minutes before I put him back with Obi, he went straight back to trying the bite Obi and started to chase him around. They were letting out very loud shrieks that I’ve only ever heard once or twice- but those times they sorted it out and left each other alone, unlike this time where if I didn’t separate them once again there would have definitely been blood shed.
This time I took Obi out who was clearly shaken up, he hid under the covers and I consoled him for a while until he started coming out and exploring. It was about 40-50 minutes later when I put him back with Loki who seemed to be constantly on guard. Once again, he tried going at Obi.
That time, I had enough. I’ve got a double critter nation so I just reversed the top platform to close the top opening and separated their food, gave them each a water bottle/bowl, toilet and an equal amount of toys and hideaways. It’s been about half an hour and Obi’s finally peacefully resting whilst Loki’s still running around.
Right, so I have a slight suspicion to what might be going on. About a week or so (give or take) Loki started to develop a cyst-like bump in the top corner of his eye, for the past few days he’s been completely fine, acting normal, eating, drinking etc...However because of what happened tonight, I believe he either might be in pain or just acting out because of the cyst thing? I do have an appointment tomorrow evening with the vet for the bump so I’ll be sure to mention what happened today.
But what else could this be if not the bump?
TL;DR: my rat Loki has suddenly become very aggressive to his cage mate (brother) and has constantly tried nipping him in either the stomach/crotch area. Even after being apart for over an hour. He has a cyst-like growth next to his eye that he’s getting checked out tomorrow, could that be why? If not, why is he acting like this?
