crazy rat!!!!!!!!!

ok i have a big problem these rats have been together for a month and a half, and all of a sudden one of the females went crazy i mean completely nuts. she was attacking the other girls and biting herself. the other girls was holding her down it was so weird and the big male was hiding. then the other girls hid and she still was freaking out i had to catch her with a pair of tongs and she started attacking the tongs. usually i can hold the rats they are in my house so i hear them all the time i could hear her from the other side of my house. she is from pet smart. what should i do. i dont want to kill her and now im scared to use her as food incase she has something.

im sure it will be ok if you feed her to your snakes. but i would not recommend putting her back in the tank with the others, but using her as food shouldn't be a problem

I would just feed her off unless yopu just bought her then I would tack her back

I wouldnt feed her off, she sounds like she would be the rat the bite your snake badly! Id just Co2/ what ever and despose of her.

if i co2 her can i feed her to my big girl?

if you co2 her you can feed her to your snakes. thiers 2 ways of doing a co2 chamber.

1. styrafoam (sp) cooler and dry ice. all you need for this is a styrafoam cooler and a some thing to hold your dry ice. After you gather these things. You put your rat in the cooler then the dry ice in the cooler. cover the cooler then wait 30min - 1 hr. and then wala snake food.

2. with a paintball canister which is hard for me to explain

ok rats are proving to be a nightmare. i feed my big female 2 large rats a week. would it be bad for me to start feeding her 4 or 5 large mice a week i seem to have better luck with mice? or is that to stressfull for her to have to kill that many. i hate rasing rats!!!!!!!!!!

hmmm maybe you should just up her food size maybe a small gp (guiena pig sp) or a small rabbit?

:8:that would be so much easier being that my girl friend raises rabbits but my girl refuses to let me feed off some her babbies lol. so i dont know what to do.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dmaricle

if i co2 her can i feed her to my big girl?

---

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showthread.php?t=55509

There's the paintball method.

Woh...you big female only needs to be fed 1 small rat a week, it will save you on money, and it could possibly save the snake.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by stangs13

Woh...you big female only needs to be fed 1 small rat a week, it will save you on money, and it could possibly save the snake.

---

so you think im feeding her to much? i thought twice a week was normal.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by stangs13

Woh...you big female only needs to be fed 1 small rat a week, it will save you on money, and it could possibly save the snake.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dmaricle

so you think im feeding her to much? i thought twice a week was normal.

---

Depends entirely on what species of "big female" she is. Two large rats a week might be fine for a really big boa or a growing burmese. But WAY too much food for any ball python. Regardless of species though...feeding more often than once a week for a mature snake is not usually recommended. Might be ok for babies and rapidly growing juvies...but for most commonly kept species, a mature snake never needs to eat more than every 7-10 days.

Did you see her attacking herself?

Rats do groom themselves when other rats are "grooming" them. (Where they hold down another rat and "bite" them in one particular spot.) Many times they will jump up and quickly groom themselves right where the other rat just had done it. It looks like they are biting their own backs or whereever, but they are in a sense scratching themselves and grooming. It's a part of the social heirarchy, and my guess is you saw that and thought they were fighting. They can screech and be loud during this, it's completely NORMAL.

If not...

My guess is you saw a rat fight. Female rats that are unfamiliar with each other and close to full grown will fight. It's not all fun and games with them.

My guess is she is was in heat and the male attempted to mate, making her extremely stressed and defensive. Or, perhaps another female in heat was feeling bossy and decided to take after her. (The holding her down is a form of dominance)

Rats can be very vocal (sometimes like they are killing each other), but if it was truly a fight, there would have been many injuries and blood.

I would watch the others closely and monitor for any illness or parasties (mainly external).

Always quarantine new additions for a minimum of 30 days away from the colony. Rats are susceptible to many diseases and parasites.

I'm curious what kind of snake you are talking about. JLC makes a very good point. NO BP should be eating two large rats a week. And, I could be wrong here, but I don't think anyone feeds large rats to a BP. Feeding multiple mice is fine. Certainly better than too large a prey item.

i put the rat back with the colony and it happened again. there is no blood when they fight just alot of nioise and rolling around and holding down. so i think i may just put her with a male all alone.

i talked to brian at bhb and he said that its cool to feed my balls large rats but what i probably gonna do is gradually cross over to several mice a week. and the snake we have been talking about is a normal female ball python around 3000 grams.

thanks for all the tips.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dmaricle

i put the rat back with the colony and it happened again. there is no blood when they fight just alot of nioise and rolling around and holding down. so i think i may just put her with a male all alone.

i talked to brian at bhb and he said that its cool to feed my balls large rats but what i probably gonna do is gradually cross over to several mice a week. and the snake we have been talking about is a normal female ball python around 3000 grams.

thanks for all the tips.

---

What your describing is absolutely, no doubt about it, NORMAL.

They have a social ladder that has to be worked out everytime you introduce a animal.

It should be blatantly obvious who the culprit is. I like to remove the overly pushy ones away from rats I know they will not get along with. This sounds like the same scenario.

If you find that SHE is the overly pushy girl, your right on the money she should be left alone with just the male. She's most likely in heat as well. Usually after their first litter they calm down. :)

thats prob it. the only part that freaked me out is the fact that they have been together in the same cage for over a month. and i bought them all together so they have been a group for a long time and then all of a sudden they changed. she must be in heat but the male seems to show no interest. :confused:

No blood, no foul.

i am probably making another rat hut today because it seems that they just cant be together anymore lol

My rats "fight" from time to time. Sometimes it is fun, other times its dominance. As long as I don't see blood, I don't worry about it to much.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jay_Bunny

My rats "fight" from time to time. Sometimes it is fun, other times its dominance. As long as I don't see blood, I don't worry about it to much.

---

but what if it keeps going on lol.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dmaricle

but what if it keeps going on lol.

---

It's a judgment call, my experience tells me it will sort out eventually and I really don't separate them. Unless it's just plain annoying!! LOL

I also have a lot of room to spare, and it doesn't bother me one bit to grab annoying girl out and give her someone else to play with.

thats what im working on now is making a big hut to keep several groups in.

ok im building a larger rat rack. where can i get some quality live rats at a good breeding age.