# haha, he can't see!



## Lesath (Jul 14, 2007)

Igor always does this:







































And it's beacuse he can't see otherwise! lol!!Â


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## DFW_Rat_Luvr (Aug 29, 2007)

what a cutie!


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## kaylaface (Sep 6, 2007)

He is such a cute rattie. *sigh* I think I'm in love. lol.


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## Lesath (Jul 14, 2007)

He's a big mr. scritchy is what he is.  He loves getting attention and love, you can just spend hours with him and he'll melt your heart. Until he gets in contact with another rat, then his mean grumpy side comes out. He has to live alone because he just will not get along with other rats. Out of 9 different rats he's been introduced to, only one he ever did get along with. After that one passed away he won't get along with anyone else, and frankly nobody else like him anymore either! lol! I still need to get him neutered but he is almost 2 years old and he is so happy living alone, I'm wonder if maybe I should just let him live in his own cage and just cuddle him for a few hours a day.


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## jellybeanqueen (Sep 6, 2007)

aww, he's adorable! <3
and if he's nearly two and doesn't like other rats, it'd probably be best if you let him live the rest of his days with lots of private cuddle time with you, as introduicng new rats might stress him out!


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## Night (Feb 23, 2007)

Lesath - you should try him with another rat. Rats, no matter what age, do well with company. He seems healthy, so I don't think any stress brought on by intros will do anything to him. Maybe opt to adopt a spayed girlie?


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## Lesath (Jul 14, 2007)

Night said:


> Lesath - you should try him with another rat. Rats, no matter what age, do well with company. He seems healthy, so I don't think any stress brought on by intros will do anything to him. Maybe opt to adopt a spayed girlie?


I've tried a lot of rats with him. Recently I bought two new babies and after the quarantine was over we tried introductions a few times and it was a no go. I don't have room for anymore rats right now, and I can't keep bringing new rats home in the hopes that Igor will get along with them (the last FOUR I got were supposed to be cagemates for Igor, now I've got 3 large rat cages being used all at once). He lives in the ratroom with the other rats and he often throws fits and has pee fights with the other cages when he feels they are too close to him. He is quite the character. After he lost his cagemate he was just done with other rats.


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## A1APassion (Jul 29, 2007)

I hear what you are saying...

I ended up with one of my boys being alone after the loss of his cagemate. I went on a mission to find him a new buddy.

Well we find a good prospect. The new buddy is happy, healthy & very animated. After QT we start with intros, a few minutes to an hour, few times a day for about a week. All seems well. So the big day comes for full integration. I strip & clean the cage they will share. In fact it is a cage that neither had lived in. (cleaned it thoroughly since it was a hand me down cage)

So they play in the rat room free roaming for a few hours... no problems.

I decide to shrink down to a smaller space so that they stay within sight of each other... no problems.

We now move to placing the top of the cage over them so that they can run up & down inside it but i left the pan off in case I needed to get at them quickly... still no problems.

Ok, this is going well & has now been going on over the course of the entire day, like 6 to 8 hours, so I decide to put the cage together with them inside & see how it goes prior to bed time.

They did great for the first 45 minutes or so, right up until the time one of my kids call me from the next room to look at something. I literally take 5 steps away from the front of the cage & my oldest daughter (19) who was helping with intros yells out for me. I run back reach in the cage to grab the first rolling furball I could grab & then she grabs the other. It took about 2 minutes to discover the huge gash on the underside of our original boy & there were only a couple small marks on the new boy.

Well, the original boy Nubbers (the blue guy in my avatar) survived just fine. I was able to patch him up & get some antibiotics for just in case. But he was totally freaked out by the very site of the new boy DD from that day to present. 

So here I am... 2 solo rats... ARRRGGGG, that was not the goal. 

Well we tried one more time with a much younger boy.

That was a match made in heaven for Nubbers. I did try him out with DD but that was very quickly determined to be a very bad idea. That would have most likely ended very badly & not in favor of the 6 week old baby. 

Nubbers & his buddy Blaze are happy. DD is quite happy on his own. I think some rats do prefer to be solo & I have no idea why. He is extremely playful & completely submits to us when we hand wrestle him. We have thought about having him neutered & seeing how he would fair with the girls but then again if we do that & he is still aggressive with them, he is so freaking huge I'm afraid he may hurt them. 

Sometimes you just have to accept that a rat may live on their own & no matter how many times we might read that it is best for them to have a cage mate... only we who have these rats know for sure.

I'm completely of the same mind as LeSath


> I can't keep bringing new rats home in the hopes that Igor will get along with them


 I too now have 3 huge cages instead of the 2 I had planned on having. I have also seriously reconsidered bringing any more rats home because what am I going to do if intros go bad? I can't keep adding cages. 

We have definitely decided one thing... no new rats come in unless they already have an established cage mate. If I'm going to attempt to figure out where I will put a forth cage there is going to be more than one in it.


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## Lesath (Jul 14, 2007)

I buy all my rats in pairs now, usually from the same litter also. The two young guys are still in the cage that is covered with hardware cloth (so they can't get out between the bars) and the huge 4 story cage has 3 boys in it, and then Igor has a huge cage all to himself. I can't even get through 2 or 3 minutes of intros in the tub, with treats and vanilla, before Igor starts attacking everyone. I've lost a baby rat to agression before so I'm really careful about intros. I don't want any rats hurt. This was our last intro session and I could only get about 2 pictures before I had to put down the camera and remove Igor so everyone else could get along. 

It almost seems like Igor has this intro thing down... 

"leave my nice huge cage to be stuck in the battle tub with new rats!"

In fact last time I built this huge cardboard box so he wouldn't figure out he was going to the battle tub.

Igor getting all puffy, pre attack stage









Igor about to attack Sylvester









I had to make him a pancake so he would feel better


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## simbakitten (Oct 10, 2007)

lol i love the pics soo cute


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## glindella (Sep 9, 2007)

Oh! I love the pancake pic!


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## twitch (Jan 4, 2007)

and he still looks disgruntled even with the pancake... :lol: some rats eh?


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## Sparker (Jun 17, 2007)

I love that his name is Igor and he is a grump. It makes me smile.


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