Post-Neuter: When can i begin intro?

[Lourice]

On Tuesday it will be 3 weeks since the boys have been neutered. (I have two of them)

I've noticed huge differences in their behaviour, especially with my aggressive rat Louis, and I'm very pleased.

I figured 3 weeks is a long enough time to wait before starting to intro again because I've heard that it can take up to 3 weeks for aggression to go down.

I started out today with putting Louis in Maurice's cage and vice versa, and Louis had very minimal puffing. Compared to how he used to freak out before, I wouldn't even call it puffing what he did. He was calm the whole time in Maurice's cage, and just looked around curiously.


I'm going to do the cage switching with them every day for about 4 days, then I will try my first intro session with them. I plan on using vanilla extract and a (somewhat) scary place.

Do you think I waited long enough?
I'm so nervous about intros because it went so badly last time. I don't want any of my rats to get hurt again.

also any tips would be great

 

[victoria]

It varies a lot by individual rats. Some improve/calm down right away, some take months. If you can see a dramatic change already, it's worth a try. Are they both healed completely? If they're in pain or feeling vulnerable, that could make things difficult.

Some think the vanilla extract trick slows the introduction process down because they don't get used to each others' scents.

 

[jorats]

Like Victoria mentioned, if they are all healed up then I'd start right away with intros. Some rats it can take 3 months for a complete behaviour change but most is much sooner than that.