Agressive Rat

Hey all you rat owners I got a real quick q. I recently got two little female dumbo rats at the local petshop. I bought them planning to use them as future breeders and pets. When I first saw them I handled both and looked them over they looked good and were kinda scared but nothing to bad.

Well the other day I started to notice some type of reddish scabbing near thier noses. Also I've tried to handle them at least once a day and my blacker one is pretty chill when she's out, but would rather hide. While my fawn hooded freaks out jumps off my hands and darts under my bed, and then today she freaked and bit the hell out of me twice.

I work a petsmart and until recently I;ve always considered rodents as snake food but until recently I have taken to rats. So I have a little experiance. I got them at the smaller petshop instead of waitin for dumbos at work.:oops: They are housed in 31 gal rubbermaid like the one in the feeder forum and feed them becky's mix. Oh and they are on pine pellets as substrate

So any advice will help! Hopefully I dont have to feed them to something and start over.... but I am really tempted to...

What you are seeing is porphyrin, secreted by the Hadrian glad that's right behind the eye (actually situated in the orbit of the eye I believe). You'll see an overproduction of porphyrin aka red tears in rats that are stressed, are feeling ill or are not being housed/fed properly. It may be from something the pet store did and you are just noticing the effects now. It may be that one rat is overly dominating the other and stressing it out or it could be that the rat is ill. Have you noticed a lot of sneezing or any wheezing with this rat?

As far as the rat being aggressive, I wouldn't handle her too much at the moment. Just work on enticing her to come to your hand with special treats like bread soaked in olive oil or dabbed with a tad of peanut butter or that sort of thing. Here's a link for foods you can feed rats as treats or suppliments to their dry diet....

http://www.ratnutrition.com/suppleme...forbiddenfoods

If she's being a bit nutsy, just let her watch her cagemate getting lots of yummy treats and don't make a fuss over the one that's acting out. Rats are very food driven, she'll eventually want to come to you because the other rat is getting all the goodies.

Take her out occasionally if she's calm but for now just work on her coming to you for a treat and accepting a light scratch behind the ears or a gentle touch in her enclosure. Some rats never do come around and have a poor temperment but that's rare. Most do become handtamed but it does take a little while with some if they haven't been handled at all from birth.

Exactly what Jo said. She sounds stressed, so its best to earn her trust by letting her come to you for treats. She will associate you with yummy food.

Instead of taking her completely out of her cage for minutes at a time, You can pick her up, try not to hold her, but let her walk on your arms for 5 seconds or so, and let her walk back into her tub. It will teach her that she can get back to safety of her cage, and you arent all that bad. From there, its just about increasing the time out of the cage, and being able to see when she is stressing and wants to go home.
She may never be very outgoing, but it's a relationship, slow persistant work and trust building is key.

Alright thanks guys! Ive started working on givin them treats. Mona my lil black one was hesitant but as soon as she realized apples=yummy she comes out to grab it :D but Lisa still wont venture out of the igloo when im there.

When do you think the red tears should clear up?

Get them off of the pine as it's likely irritating their respiratory tract. Aspen or Yesterday's News would be your best bet and won't stink after a week.

When quarantining a new rat, I never give them a house. It lets them know it's ok to hide from normal things. I only give them a hammock to sleep in and some paper towels to bed down with.

If the sick girl starts acting more distressed, is breating harder, has porph around her eyes and nose, has sunken in sides, or is gasping, you NEED to take her to the vet. The vet will put her on a 7-10 day antibiotic regimen and that will take care of the respiratory infection.

Alright Ill try yesterday's news tomorrow. I thought the pellets would be ok, cuz I read alot of people using it in the feeders forums