Quick question about my two female ratties

I posted on an actual rat forum and no one responded so I figured I would ask my question here. I have two female ratties that are sisters. One is hairless and the other has fur. I just recently changed their diet to Harland Teklad lab blocks. I only give them a small amount of food each day. Well, my question is this, why is my hairless rat annoying and bickering with her furry sister? Yesterday she was just relentless and would not leave her sister alone and the furry rat was verbally protesting. This behavior has only started since I changed their diet and cut them back on the amount of food that I give them. Any input is greatly appreciated.

How old are they? My younger rats play and wrestle an generally bug and annoy everything in their tub when their eyes are open. The older ones still not mature will still play, their wrestling gets more noisy an vocal. My adults tho I never see them playing or anything, I have seen sister rats team up on another female when I tried getting the three girls to drop their litters together. Long story short I ended a forceful c section. Other than that instance tho my females generally just chill together without any problems.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk 2

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by carlson

How old are they? My younger rats play and wrestle an generally bug and annoy everything in their tub when their eyes are open. The older ones still not mature will still play, their wrestling gets more noisy an vocal. My adults tho I never see them playing or anything, I have seen sister rats team up on another female when I tried getting the three girls to drop their litters together. Long story short I ended a forceful c section. Other than that instance tho my females generally just chill together without any problems.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk 2

---

I rescued these two girls. I was told they are approximately two years old. They still wrestle at times and bicker quite a bit. The hairless one seems to be the instigator of the two. Thanks for your input!

Rats should have food available 24/7 ;)

Yup. Food should be available at all times. They could be hungry, or fighting over food. And make sure they don't run out of water.

Oh my gosh! I should have just come here in the first darn place with my question! The people on the rat forum told me that my rats only need to have access to food once a day! No wonder they have been acting out towards one another. Thanks guys for the advice!

Another thought, although the food thing is most likely the problem, make sure that there's places for them to hide in so they don't have to see each other constantly. Mostly rats don't care (which is why keeping them in tub-racks works out so well), but some rats get a bit persnickety without some alone-time. It'll also give furry-sister a way to hide from the troublemaker.

Some 12-pack soda boxes should work fine, or empty tissue boxes. Doesn't have to be fancy, and they'll have fun chewing them up.

I feed all my rats, hairless and hairy, teklad and have no problems with them. As the others said, they were probably hungry. I just leave a bowl in the cage all the time with them if they're not in a rack.

Give a little hut to hide in with a 1 rat sized door. If she's getting annoyed she can go in and defend the door.