Introductions. How do you not give up? and cage ideas?

[ryelle]

Hi everyone
I have two girls i need to introduce. I am getting my rat put to sleep hopefully tomorrow and there will be a lone rat left over. I brought a girl (known atm as Black Rat) home from work who was left after her friends died or were pts due to ill health (glad i did because my co-worker said today "i'd have just taken both of them to be pts", even though apart from a small tumour and a rattly chest i think this girl has a few more months left in her). So i was wanting to put my last rat and this lone rat together.

ETA: I am an old member here and know the ins and out's of intro's.. i have just never had a successful one

So this new girl does not like people at all. She is very scared and I am worried she will bite if I touch her. My boyfriend really doesn't like her after having extremely tame rats the past two years we have been together. It makes transporting her really difficult though. She bolted out of the cage when i cleaned her out the other day - think CN and she was in the top cage - and i managed to grab her and quickly, almost throw, her back in without being bitten. I am trying to swap the rats so they spend a week in the top and a week in the bottom inbetween cleans, with moving the black rat in a cardboard box house.

I don't know if the CN or FN trays are the same as the Liberta Explorer, but the top tray has a hole cut in to the corner for the ladder to go up. I have ladders cable tied to cover the hole up but I have been putting cardboard and all sorts of things in the cage to cover this gap, but the rats are still trying to fight through it. Black rat is already covered in battle scars from her last sister when they had a dominance struggle. Any ideas how to resolve this?

I don't know if Pony being removed from the situation will settle things down - she is extremely dominant even with that humongous tumour hanging from her. At what point do you stop trying to into? Don't worry, I am not even anywhere near started with these intro's. The timidness from Black Rat is making me rather worried about how difficult this is going to be though or whether its even worth it

 

[jorats]

Hi Ryelle, good to see you again. And I do remember how hard your intros were in the past and I can sure understand your current reservations.

First off, I really believe there should never be a time to give up. What should be done is giving time in between try outs. Lets say you try for a week and still a no go, wait a month and try again.
Could this girl with the tumour be in pain? Which might explain her fear biting? She will need a lot of down the shirt socializing if you want to go that far, or are you content with just having her happily co exist with your girl?
I would do daily swaps. So they can smell each other in both spaces all the time.

Also, I'd like to say I'm so very sorry of your loss.
And I'm going to move this to the behaviour section so it doesn't get lost in this section.

 

[Joanne]

I agree with Jo that you should switch them daily.
I think the key is not to put a time limit on it. The last few intros for me have taken quite a while (quite a few weeks) and even when they are all in the same cage, more weeks before they are really united in one group and sleeping together. When I intro'ed Baby Boy to the group, it was months before I finally found him in a rat pile (I was so happy!!!)
Take your time and don't give up!

I used a thin piece of wood (1/8"?) and put that over the ramp in my Double Critter Nation to prevent injuries between levels.

If you can successfully intro them, then your tame rat will help show Black Rat the way...