Introducing Rats

[Piggersrule]

I was wondering if anyone knows what the proper proceedure is to introducing rats? I am fostering 3 males right now, I plan on adopting 2 more rats. I'm not sure if I am going to adopt males or females. If I adopt males, I was wondering if I could place them with the males I am fostering now. The 3 foster males are bonded and do live together quite nicely. Would introducing more males disrupt the bond between the 3 males?

[Ly&Pigs]

Rats aren't as hard to introduce as many pigs are. Even male rats generally get along well. I know there is a 3 week quarantine just as there is with piggers although I didn't find that out until after I had already introduced Markie to Izzy and Gray so I only had them in quarantine for about a week/week and a half until the new cage was done. But intro's went wonderful. I did it with them all on my bed (neutral territory) and they just played after a bit of sniffing. Then the girls all went to live in the lower level of the newly built cage together.

I'm going to pm you a link about introducing rats. I can't post it on the forum as the site has a list of breeders on it. But I think it's a good article with good info on how to do successful intro's.

[Piggersrule]

I got your PM, thanks for the link. I will read it over and hopfully I will learn something new.

[newpiggiemama]

I see this thread is about two weeks old, but I wanted to respond anyway...for future refrence.

I agree with Ly, when she says rats arnt as hard to introduce as pigs are. The way I do it, is I sit on my bed, with plenty of igloos and blankets they can explore in and ushally they will fight at first, but unless it gets bad, let it go. If it does get bad dont try to break it up, because they will get scared and ushally bite. Try to have some treats handy as well. You want to keep them really occupied and then the next thing you know, they will be like, hey there are other rats here. Lol. Females wont be hard to introduce (ushally) but it is the males who are a bit harder.

Like I said, key is having a big open space, lots of hiding toys ( igloos ) and treats. Works everytime for me.

[Piggersrule]

I seen an adult female living alone at the shelter that I want to adopt. If I adopted her I would like for her to live with my other females who are younger, they are approaching 5 months old now. I'm not sure if the younger girls will accept her and I don't know if I should chance it.