Successful Introduction of a New Male into an Established Colony

[frankykeno]

Well we had an interesting experience with one of the ASF breeding colonies that I thought I'd share.

One of my established groups (1 male, 3 large females, 2 younger females - daughters of the colony) had to have the male removed. He became ill with multiple small tumor-like growths and stopped breeding his females. I was concerned because normally introducing a male into a colony like this an instant death sentence for the new male. Since none of the females are pregnant they are both a non-producing colony and there was no chance to raise a son of that group up to replace his sire.

What I did was this. I removed the ill male and picked a large, healthy sexually mature male from my feeder group. He is not a small male but one I was raising in a group of large males for feeding my largest BP's. I put the new male into a small kritter keeper with a good supply of used bedding from this colony's tank, specifically from the toilet corner. I left him to run around on that bedding while I cleaned the enclosure completely. Once the enclosure was clean and new bedding put down, also new food and a new, clean hide I put the new male in first and gave him a chance to check out the enclosure and lay down some of his own scent. Hopefully after his time on the used bedding he was now carrying some of this colony's unique smell on his own fur.

Once he'd had some time to get oriented I introduced the females back into their home. The dominant female of this group did challenge him a bit but showed no really strong aggression. He was smart enough to submit to her checking him out thoroughly (dropped his ears down and so forth). The other females followed her lead, checked him out, boxed a bit with him and then accepted him. Within a few hours he was allowed into their nesting box and I also saw him doing typical male guarding behaviours so it all seems to be going quite well.

It's been well over 36 hours now since he was introduced, he has no bite wounds and the colony is acting normally - eating, sleeping, using their wheel - so I think I can safely call this a successful introduction. I'm quite pleased since it would have been a real waste to have had to feed off these 5 healthy, producing females due to the loss of their male.

[littleindiangirl]

That's wonderful! I was always curious if the absense of the young, and doing what you have would allow for an easy reception from the females. Great post Jo!

[frankykeno]

Thanks Connie. I do think the absense of nursing young in the colony went a long way to helping this work. Had the females had young I would have likely just raised up a male or alternatively I would have waited for them to wean their young, removed them and then a few days later, tried this method to get a new, breeding male in there.

Have you ever seen an illness like this with an ASF, Connie? The male was fine then suddenly over the past month he developed multiple wortlike small tumors all over his body. It was just so gross! He definitely was going downhill and as I said, had completely stopped paying any attention to his females. I've never seen this before.

[llovelace]

Wow that's great , let us know when he starts to successfully breed them

[Corvid]

Thank you for sharing!
What about fostering a male (a 2 or so weeks old) from another colony and having the new colony raise it and keeping in the male like you would their own son?
Do ASFs foster like regular rats?

[frankykeno]

I can honestly say I've never tried a fostering situation with these highly social animals. They seem to have such an overdeveloped colony structure and I've seen the immediate (and bloody) results of trying to introduce a young, new member that I have always assumed it was a no go.

When I first had ASF's I did try to return a female to a colony she was born to. She had been out of that colony a few days, maybe a week, when I decided I actually wanted another female in that group so put her back in with her group. They immediately and severely attacked her drawing a lot of blood. Even the male went after her like that. I was forced to pull her and feed her off. The attack lasted only a minute or two but they would have killed her, that was very obvious.

[anatess]

I successfully added a baby to a 2 week-old group. I did it the exact same way you added the male in your above post. I put the baby in soiled bedding, then I cleaned the enclosure. I put the baby in with the soiled bedding and piled the rest of the babies on top of her. Then I put the mom back. She is now a breeder in that same group!

I've also made the mistake of returning a 3-week-old rat that wasn't eaten back into the colony. I felt terrible because I've read on here about them not very good with "other" rats, but I only had the rat out for less than an hour so I didn't think they'd forget about him already! I woke up the next morning and the rat was dead and buried in a corner.