Intros again :) All done-moved in and loving it.

[hopefloats]

I would really like to get my two groups that are able to be out all night in the same group. Edgar, Eli, Bart, Flynn, Lenny, Squiggy, Pika and Skittles for one group and the other is Romeo, Sendai, Tart, Chimp, Tweek, Pixie, Choxi, Sebastian. Of course the 4 girls are spayed. Romeo, Sendai, Sebastian and Tart are the only neutered boys. the rest never gave me a reason to. I know the first group was ok during all intros. the second group I wonder about.

I put them in the living room in our play pen.

My oldest girl skittles 29 months now. something like that LOL i suck at remembering. She is the black hooded with the stripe down her back.

Pixie will be a year old on my birthday, august 23. She is a wee thing anyway but next to edgar she is tiny.

I will probably have to buy a newer Ferret nation to fit them in. I have an add on in the garage. I cannot add it to the old double i have since it is the old style. I am still debating. This would get me down to 3 groups, plus cobby. 29, 5, 16 and single boy cobby.

 

[jorats]

3 groups is very manageable. You are such a pro at intros now, I think you are starting to enjoy this and finding groups to add together. lol

 

[hopefloats]

I have been for what a year now? Well actually over a year. It isnt the number of rats (obviously) it is the number of groups LOL If i could let these two out all night together it would make out time so much easier. I am all about making my life easier. Less groups to rotate out the better off i am. I guess depending on how they get along they would only use a cage for most days for 8 hours or so. If they are together they would be out all night and then while I work so they would have limited cage time.

The space is a bit different here since they do get hours at a time so I just have to figure out how it will work out. right now they have been in the play pen since I got home so over an hour no and no noise. There was an underlying reason why I wanted romeo and Sendai neutered LOL, I change my plan when my monster group was so large they couldnt take 8 more lol

who knows maybe after i get these two together I will get rid of that triple feisty ferret and just introduce both groups and leave the doors off constantly LOL oh the possibilities.

 

[jorats]

I wish I could do that, leave the doors off the cage permanently, that would be fun!

 

[mamarat]

3 groups is very manageable. You are such a pro at intros now, I think you are starting to enjoy this and finding groups to add together. lol

:laugh4:

 

[hopefloats]

They are back in the play pen now. They can spend a few hours in there and no noise at all from any of them. I thought when we put Romeos group back in the cage Sendai would snap again. If you remember when I did the intros the first time around he had a total rage attack when we put him back in the room prompting him to be removed from intros and to the end of the intros in the end. He didnt do anything and he was even put in a different cage than they lived in. I have them in the fn with the oldies part of it anyway since they were out all night last night and no drama.


It is looking rather promising. After this unless I introduce the remainder of the groups that live after these 16 pass to the big group I will be done with intros for a while. My rexzillas are happy as a group of 5. The 29 is maxed out and this group of 16 will make our out time so damn easy I cannot wait for it to happen LOL I decided it wasnt their option live with them. It is mine. So i took their cage out and made a safe place for the group of 29 to have their out time in. So far all rats are happy and getting twice the amount of out time they were getting just a few days ago. I no longer have to stuff 29 rats in the playpen which makes me incredibly happy.

 

[mamarat]

:joy:

 

[hopefloats]

That is a total mix of my two groups sleeping in a hidey house.

And eating together.

I really think this will work. they have been in there since 11am at least. and this is all you see. It has to work I took their cage out LOL

 

[mamarat]

Fingers crossed!

 

[hopefloats]

I left the rats in the playpen for the night since they were getting along so well. we are doing intros in the rat room now. I am kinda doing long you are gonna get along intros with them lol

This is how they slept this morning

They have lived with edgar and his boys before so they are not totally foreign to each other. A few little nips here and some power grooming but nothing major. Romeo is alpha of his cage I am hoping since eli and edgar are older they will just let him have it. Honestly neither of them have ever really felt the need to show as alpha but they are the protectors if anything happens around their rats.

I think once romeo simmers down with his need to show them who the boss is it will be fine. All the other rats even sendai are fine. Most of the rats could care less who is with them. They have done the same thing in previous intros as well.

I can say that even this partial together group i am amazed and ecstatic over the outcome. The youngest group can stay out in their area for most of the day and not cause any problems. Their out time have totally been expanded. The rexzillas will now be able to have more out time. I even left them out all night last night since I had the other rats in the living room with me for safe keeping. They seem happier which is a huge plus for my boys.

The other intro group are still getting massive out times we can trust them on one side of the room with the rat room open so i can listen for squabbles.

This is really going to make their lives amazing as far as out time and my life so much easier with only rotating out 2 groups since the musicmen/girls group gets to stay out most of the day.

 

[jorats]

It's a win win situation!

 

[hopefloats]

So I know I say this often but I am totally done with intros. This group was another easy one although I did a scary very long forced intro with them. It worked. My boys are very good boys though the only two I had questions about was Romeo and Sendai. Romeo loves to walk around puffed up. You can tell it is from the smell of other rats because I even tried to medicate him for it thinking something was wrong.

Again there has been no scuffles and the minor pinning that they did was nothing. My boys let Romeo think he is boss so he is happy although we know when it comes down to it Edgar and Eli are. But sadly my boys are aging health wise no doubt from their size. I havent had much luck with boys living past 20 months that I got from this area so They are about 19 months old now.

My girls Skittles who is the the oldest at 30months old along with pika who is very close to her age were very good in these intros. They let pixie and choxi right in and never thought twice about it.

So we have 4 girls, and 14 boys. Only 4 are neutered. I am really blessed with these boys being able to keep them intact in such large groups lol

SKittles, Pikachu, Pixie, Choxie, Sebastian, Romeo, Tart, Sendai, Tweek, Chimp, Bart, Edgar, Eli, Lenny, Squiggy, and Flynn!

I was trying to get a good picture of Pixie next to the rats. She will be a year old on the 23rd and the smallest damn thing ever LOL she just never grew.
It is all blurry.

This make my life SOOOO much easier! I was rotating these two groups out so they could have all night out time. I would take turns leaving them out when we left. They are the only group I can trust although I am able to trust my Rexzillas a bit now so they get a bit of unattended out time.

I can leave them out all night as a big group, no more switching, they get double the time out which is good for aging rats. Especially ones that do not use a wheel LOL

I went from 8 groups to 3 now. Just awesome!