paranoid squeaking?! Needs help!

[Rucina]

i have three male rats Remmy, Loki, and Baby. i have also just moved into a new house with them. my youngest baby as been acting strange recently he as been squeaking and becoming extremely paranoid. he hasn't been moving as much as he normally does and as been attacking loki when he gets to close. loki normally starts fights with baby but baby he doesn't normally just go after him just for being to close. he will try to come see me but when he tries he ends up squeaking really loudly and jumping i am scared to handle him to much cause i don't want to make anything worse. he also was just sitting at the upper level and stare and get really jumpy and sometimes when you go to pet him he would stiffen up. i separated him and put him in a one level area so that he doesn't have to clime and that he can rest by him self with out loki pestering him or either of the other two making him nervous. i don't know what area is really hurt i think its in his torso area but i have also noticed him cleaning the end of his tail all of the sudden which he as never done before. i don't think it is his feet either they look pretty good. but he does have a old foot injury from before i got him and it healed strangely but the vet said that it was ok but that could be hurting him. i really want to get him to the vet as soon as possible but i may not till a week or so i was wondering if anyone has ever heard of anything like this or know of any other precautions that i can take to make him feel any better? or any other info you could share with me that would help?

 

[jorats]

Hi!
How old are the three boys?
Baby sounds like a very nervous rat, not necessarily a hurt rat. Some rats go through a "scared" phase where everything makes them jump and they are very scared of the human too. These rats need extra socializing. Also, it sounds like you have an alpha bully in the cage which would make Baby even more nervous/worried in his home.
A vet check is always a good thing but I think you might want to think about getting your sweeties neutered.

 

[Rissa]

One of my rats would scream bloody murder everytime I went to touch him. He would jump and squeak and act insane. He also didn't like the other rats coming near him. With time he learned the other rats just wanted to sniff him and roll him over not actually inflict pain. Like jo said though you may want to look into getting the aggressive one neutered, that can help a lot. The other thing I found that helped a lot was to pick the rat up and walk away from the cage so it can't see it. Hold it against your chest and softly pet it and talk to it, after 2-3 minutes put it back in the cage and give it a treat. If the rat is really freaked you may want to have a soft blanket to hold overtop of it too, as rats like enclosed areas. Do this multiple times a day for a couple of days. The other option is to wear a t-shirt, put another t-shirt on top and stick the rat in between for a good 20 minutes while you do other things. I found that with my screamer he didn't mind being held it was the picking up part he didn't like so the repeated pickups with treats worked better with him.

 

[Rucina]

hi sorry it as taken me forever to repost. things have been a little crazy specially with my boys. i know that they can be afraid when you first get them and have to slowly work with them but that wasn't the case. baby had been with my other two boys for well over 6 months (they are all a year now.) with out any problems then he started doing that. i ended up having to separate him because he was to stressed out with the other boys and would end up in bad fights with them. he is currently by him self but i plan to get him neutered and see if he is any better living with some girl rats. he has been fine though he is still a bit paranoid when out but calms down after a few moments. also the he doesn't scream any more. he as gone back to randomly squeaky when he is just being a cry baby.

 

Neutering would be a good idea.
I have 5 boys which I am in the process of neutering, so far 2 out of 5 are done.
They were fine until 8 months of age.
It's the hormones.

 

[Rucina]

yeah i want to eventually get all three neutered when i move. loki is perfectly fine and is just super sleepy and likes to curl up and sleep on you. but when i move i will be moving in with my friend who as six females and we don't want any babies.