# My rats are really really crazy O.O



## Mags (Apr 24, 2013)

Hello!



I just found this forum looking through various Q&A about rat behaviour. I don't seem to be able to find anything that quite described the way my two girls are acting. I got two fancies a week ago, one with black hood named Pasta and one with a grey racing stripe called Pesto. They were a bit timid when I brought them home but after a few days of being fed treats like squished bananas (so they would have to lick it off my fingers rather than run off back to their tube) they seemed to stop being scared of my hands, and they usually don't even hide anymore when I approach the cage. They are not aggressive, they didn't try to bite or attack in any way. So far Pesto only bit me once and very lightly when I startled her by putting my finger in her Pringles tube when she was sleeping, but she quickly realized it was me and let go, didn't even break any skin. They don't seem to enjoy petting yet, they will lean away from my hand and give me a sort of "what on earth are you doing?!" look, which I guess is fair enough since I only had them for a week. They will sometimes start bruxing when they are sleeping in their hammock and I pet them then, on the neck or the side of the face, but only when they are really sleepy.





So everything seems fine since I only had them for a week, they seem to be getting used to me... The problem I'm having is their energy levels once they are wide awake and the cage is opened. They turn into real maniacs and I can't tell if they are actually scared of me or just very curious and hyper. I tried letting them out having ratty-proofed my bed so they can't get underneath it but Pesto can remove pretty much any obstacle and I had to move my heavy bed twice already in order to get her out. I was worried that I would scare her by doing that, since once I even had to hold her by the tail (I caught her but she started struggling and I was forced to hold her body with one hand and her tail by the other as she continued to struggle) but after I put her back she ran straight back out and tried to get out again. The cage is definitely not making them feel claustrophobic (it's 80 cm by 60 cm by 50 cm). They have loads of hiding places (two hammocks with "tents" on top, a little house and a Pringles tube they love) but it just seems like they really want to move house and live under my bed... They aren't too eager to climb on me or get to know me either, I tried putting a loose hoodie on and putting them underneath it, one at a time or both together but they just seem scared, or rather fidgety and tense.





I know that females are more energetic than males but these two maniacs just seem like, well, maniacs. They won't even take their favourite treats once they are outside, they just run like crazy. I had a rat before and she was the best pet ever, I could take her everywhere and she always came to me when called over, I was even allowed to take her on a 3 day school trip once because all my friends loved her  And as far as I remember she was far easier to tame. I'd really like to be able to let my girls out without having to move all the furniture in my room around to catch them every single time. And they are starting to try to escape every time I open the cage now so this is making bonding with them more and more difficult. They are just so fast I can't keep up with them, so opening the cage when they are not sleeping is becoming a real problem. I am not sure what to do to make them think that I'm "their human". 





I'd really appreciate any advice, I'm getting really worried that they won't ever get used to me ???



Thanks in advance

Mags xx


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## Mags (Apr 24, 2013)

Oh, I should add, the girls are 8-9 weeks old. Sorry for another post but I can't find the edit button again... Seems like I'm a bit of a dummie...


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## zurfaces (Jan 16, 2013)

Bathroom is a good place... Less areas to hide small. Open the cage and put them in a travel carrier so you can get them to the bathroom. If they're not taking treats outside the cage they're afraid. 

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## Mags (Apr 24, 2013)

Thanks for replying so quickly 

That is genius, bathtub is a perfect place! What should I do in the bathroom? Just sort of sit them with me in the tub on a blanket, take a book, giving them treats and speaking to them nicely for hours? I'm just slightly worried that they might try jumping out of the tub, they are real acrobats those two. I remember that's what I did with my first rat years ago, but she was slightly younger (I think only 5 weeks) and not as quick, so it was much easier. I remember I was so excited to get her I pretty much spent an entire day with her on a couch and eventually she fell asleep and since then she trusted me. I'll do that. 

Any extra tips and advice will be very appreciated

Thanks  xxx


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## Rana511 (Apr 24, 2013)

I just got two male rats that are about 2 mo old one is crazy. Check out rat dippity rattery .com best web site for info. Thi is where I got my boys. I have had them for a week and a half. Best thing for bonding is a bonding pouch. It's a pouch that they can feel safe and hide while you are bonding. On the website I just gave you can find the pouches for purchase. What I have done is sit in a chair with them in the pouch with a treat. When they are done with the treat they will start exploring you. Make sure where you are sitting they can't jump to anything near you. Then just sit back and let them run all over you. They will sent mark you an the pouch. So when you take tem out the next time wear the same clothes. That way they will feel safe. Pet them as much as you can you want to show than you are not going to hurt them. Doing this for two days and hour or so each day with my guys and they now trust me and give kisses. The clean me just like they do each other. When you let them out to romp use a blanket that's just for them and use it each time. The bathroom is a great place to let them run. Sit on the floor with them and give treats to them to get them to come to you. Good luck check out that website it's the best.


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## Mags (Apr 24, 2013)

Yeah that sounds like a plan. Not sure the pouch thing would work with my girls though, I did pretty much that using my hoodie + blanket, but they are so energetic and curious and they want to explore and they will jump off anything. When they play together in the cage they even run upside down on the roof and then they will jump off the full height of the cage on the floor. They aren't so much scared of me, they climb around me when I'm in the cage, it's just outside that they go mental... I think they are at the same time scared and curious of the new surroundings and they maybe don't fear me but they don't particularly trust me either. I will do the bathtub thing though for a few hours every day - yay for holidays!  

And those are the little trouble makers 

Pasta









Pesto


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## zurfaces (Jan 16, 2013)

They're adorable! you should try immersion training. Their is sticky under the behavior forum id link it but Im on my phone. I personally haven't done it but Ive heard a lot of great things from people who have

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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Start here:

http://www.ratforum.com/showthread.php?67442-Immersion-Training-The-Guide

Once you finish immersion you move on to training. Immersion is usually very fast but training takes a while for your rats to learn their names and understand your commands.

And yes, girl rats have lots of energy to burn, when our Fuzzy Rat was young she could run alongside a human at a slow jogging pace for over half a mile without getting winded. Our Amelia is over a year old and she still can't stop her feet from moving and roams non stop for hours at a time. When I wanted quality time, I took Fuzzy Rat down to the corner soccer field and let her run the top of the chain link fence each way a couple of times (about 100 yards each way). When her feet were tired she would be ready to snuggle. Fuzzy Rat is a true shoulder rat, so don't do that at home with yours. Indoors it's very hard to tire out a girl rat, but it's doable.

Good luck.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Mags are you in the UK by any chance?


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## Mags (Apr 24, 2013)

Aw, your Fuzzy Rat sounds like the rat I got when I was 12. Her name was Tabaka, I could take her literally everywhere. She loved digging tunnels in the sand on the beach and going for long walks with me and my german shepherd. And annoying little kids run away from me because they thought I was a witch with a rat always on my shoulder  I still miss her. 

An yeah, I'm in UK, how come?


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## Mags (Apr 24, 2013)

I read your article and it made a lot of sense to me. It also pretty much describes what I unknowingly did with Tabaka when I was 12. You're better at reading animals as a kid. The thing is that these two are a bit older than Tabaka when I got her and definitely more agile than she ever was, the little circus rats  So trying to do the same thing on my couch never worked because they knew they could jump off and wander off under a couch or the bed at any time. And they did. I had two unpleasant "rescue" missions for Pesto so far. Surprisingly she's also the one who seems to be more curious of me and more sociable, even though I had to catch her twice from under the bed. It didn't seem to scare her too much luckily. 

Anyway, I'm now planning to lock myself in the bathroom for hours with one of them at a time and then see what happens. Unfortunately it's gonna have to wait till the 13th of May, since I'm in the middle of my exams... Or I'll just study in the bathroom, my flatmates think I'm bananas anyway


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

The sooner you start immersion the better, as you will need to be constantly interacting with your rats, I'm not sure about how much reading you will get done.

I asked if you were in the UK because Pesto looks like one of those UK striped high whites, I have an American striped high white, which are pretty rare because they often die of magacolon. Both are very beautiful rats in my opinion.








And yes, children often do immersion with rats quite naturally. I think speaking with animals is a skill we somehow forget when we grow up.


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## Mags (Apr 24, 2013)

Hello again, I'd like to share what progress I've managed to make.

So I finally had a free(ish) evening and I locked myself in the bathroom with the girls and my flatmate, who really wants to be involved, and we played with them for ages. It's not like I wasn't taking them out in the mean time, but usually they would get too excited/scared(?) after about 5-10 minutes and try to run under the bed, ignoring me most of the time. And they very rarely take any food when they are out, or will take it and instantly drop it, I can't tell if they don't want to eat because they are scared or just too busy running about. I speak to them a lot and they always climb up the cage walls now when I'm near it. Anyway, today we took them to the bathroom and forced them to play with us, I was rolling them over and poking them and sometimes holding them so they would have to pay attention to me. They didn't like it to begin with and were a bit frantic but they seemed to calm down after a while, and started playing with us. They were crawling all over us and sitting on our shoulders, following a piece tissue I was holding etc. They didn't really take much food when I was offering treats but after an hour or so they started eating some cucumber and some peanut butter, but not much. They drank water from our hands too. After about an hour and a half Pasta crawled under my top and fell asleep and Pesto joined her a bit later, so I put them back in their hammock in their cage to sleep. So I suppose that's a success? I'm gonna keep doing this and hopefully I will learn to communicate with them fairly soon 

Also I will probably just let them out when I'm in the room, if they go under the bed they are bound come back out eventually, there's no cables or anything there, maybe if I let them explore there it will stop being so fascinating 

Any feedback appreciated 

Thanks again to everyone (especially Rat Daddy) for advice  

Ps. Rat Daddy, I kind of freaked out after reading about megacolon, especially since Pesto did make some pretty big poops before, but I hope it was just a case of stress pooping right after I got them... Thanks for pointing it out though, at least I know and I will be keeping a close eye on both of them but so far they seem perfectly healthy and happy.


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## Mags (Apr 24, 2013)

Some pictures of my little girls. I made the hammocks myself


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## PandaCobain (Apr 27, 2013)

Awe! I looove your girlies!! They're sooo pretty! I think instead of immersion training with Tibbers I'm going to be doing trust training and leave immersion training for my sister's crazy rat that does not like to be handled. Looks like I'll be having 3 rats by the time I move out again! Haha.

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## Mags (Apr 24, 2013)

Ok I'm starting attempt number 2. I only have Pesto out this time and I've started at 11 in the morning so I don't get sleepy after 2 hours this time. For now she's been either crawling around and sitting under my jumper or running around and exploring. She gets pretty annoyed when I try interacting with her though... Well, I have a whole day, see how it goes


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## Mags (Apr 24, 2013)

Well it's been nearly 2.5 hours and i don't seem to be getting anywhere. She just seems to get progressively more and more terrified. I'm starting to wonder if I'm not actually just scarng her for life now.....


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## Mags (Apr 24, 2013)

I've put her back in the cage. She was hiding under anything she could find any time I went near her and seemed genuely scared, more than ever before... I don't understand. It's gone very very badly.... It just seems like neither of them want anything to do with me apart from food. I'm very sad.


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## Rumy91989 (Dec 31, 2012)

Mags said:


> I've put her back in the cage. She was hiding under anything she could find any time I went near her and seemed genuely scared, more than ever before... I don't understand. It's gone very very badly.... It just seems like neither of them want anything to do with me apart from food. I'm very sad.


I wish you hadn't put her back in her cage. The reason Immersion takes so long as is that if often goes through stages. People have gone five hours before the rat has gotten over the fear/skiddishness and had a breakthrough. You need to keep the session going until the breakthrough occurs. It's a very emotional and stressful process for both of you, but is ultimately extremely rewarding. I'd get her back out ASAP and keep going, though you may effectively be starting over when you get her back out.


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## Mags (Apr 24, 2013)

Ok, thanks for encouragement, I thought I was doing something massively wrong to make her so scared. I'm obviously not giving up. I will start again. I will take as long as it takes next time. It's just a generally very stressful time for me right now and probably wasn't the best time to get them but that's the way it worked out.


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## ratclaws (Nov 11, 2012)

She's scared because you're challenging the way she thinks things are. Essentially you're restructuring the rules, making her understand that you're above her in the pack. She'll soon learn that simply being picked up and held isn't going to harm her, but actually give her treats and love.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

You know not being a cell phone type person... I just never have a camera on hand when really cool stuff happens... But when my daughter was playing with the pack of wild rats, sure she was chasing them and yes they were running away to some degree but they kept coming back and hopping across her feet and more and more rats joined into the game. 

I chose the word game carefully, because that's what it was. I had a part wild rat and she was fast and could bite viciously if she were angry or afraid, and these rats were neither. They were engaging my daughter aggressively, running at her from all angles and then scampering back under the bushes and as she turned to chase one another cut across her feet to redirect her. And we were outdoors between some small bushes, the entire pack could have vanished in less than a second if they wanted to. Oddly enough, as a marginally responsible adult, I didn't feel frightened at all until there were so many rats playing that the actual likelihood of my daughter grabbing one started making me uncomfortable. 

I didn't recognize that the rats were doing an immersion at the time, first I thought one rat was misdirecting my daughter to protect another, but after so many rats joined in and they didn't attack or flee, I recognized it was some kind of playful and joyful activity. My daughter smelled like a girl rat and was too small to be a dangerous human.. and these rats were going to try to get her to join their pack.

Sure, when you are working with a hostile or aggressive rat your session starts out with a battle for dominance, but if your immersing a normal rat, it should be a joyful experience. Yes, your aggressive, but you're aggressively playful. Yes you are assertive but assertive like a child that wants mom to play with her.

Now I need you to think back to what you said about your rats crawling under your top to sleep with you... Lets try to translate what your rats were telling you.... For clarity's sake, lets pretend they were little humans... So you get together and go on a date and have lots of fun and the evening ends with your date snuggling up with you and falling asleep on you... So how did the date go? Now I don't know how girls would view this, but from a guys perspective I'd say the date went pretty well. Assuming she didn't pass out from too many cocktails I'd say my date likes and to no small degree trusts me. Not bad for a human immersion experience...

Now lets see how you responded... you bagged them up and tossed them back into their cage.... So back to our human example... the snuggles up with you and he nods off and you kick him from the couch and out into the blizzard. Now you might still be thinking the date went pretty well, but I'm not sure he's on the same page any more as he slogs through the snow back to his car.

Rats can't talk to communicate they have to do it through action and you have to respond in kind... It's like dating someone that speaks a different language.... snuggle on couch is good, icewater flooding shoes is bad. So now you bring your rat into the immersion room again, or you call the guy again for another date.... and for some reason neither the rat nor the guy (read gal as appropriate) seems to be somewhat less trusting of your motives.

That's why immersion requires scheduling a long time. There were two online immersions done over the past two weeks and in both the rats feel asleep with their humans and in both cases the rats bonded afterwards... I likely didn't think to include it in the guide, but I've had rats fall asleep on me and as best as I could, I let them snooze so when they woke up they would wake up in my arms or on my lap... For girls the rats tend to nap under their tops, for guys it's laps or arms. 

Rats cuddling and sleeping on you is a very good thing. That's what I mean by communicating with your rats. So if you really like your date and he snuggles up to you and falls asleep or if your rats nap under your top what message do you want to communicate back?

I also might mention, if immersion was going so much better with your friend and both rats involved, it might not be bad to try it that way again. As long as you are not dealing with biting rats, immersion can be a pack experience as it was with my daughter. Obviously you never lock yourself into a room with a biting rat and anything that might distract you, or you might get bit.

Now as to high whites... there is reportedly a strain in the UK that doesn't get megacolon. High whites are very desirable and beautiful rats. Unfortunately the US strain is a nightmare so they are very rare here. My high white turned up in a feeder bin as part of a three week old litter of two high white rats. Now both were striking and both got pulled out of the feeder bin the day they arrived, and I didn't get mine until 6 months later when the pet shop employee decided she had lost interest in her female rats. But rats rarely have a litter of only two rats, and who in their right mind would toss spectacular high whites into a feeder bin? Not that I'm into breeding, but after seeing how people react to my Amelia, I could sell high whites like her on the street corner all day long and to people that don't even like rats and get top dollar. When I take her out from under my coat, she immediately draws a crowd of gushing people who grope at her even after I tell them she's a rat. I'm guessing the rest of her litter went south and the breeder dumped the two survivors before things went even more wrong. So as long as you are in the UK, chances are that your high white is fine. And at nearly a year and a half old Amelia's in wonderful healthy, fit and youthful condition. Yesterday I found her walking across the coats hung in my closet a climb my other rats other than my part-wild could never do.

Remember, think joyful immersion and communication... and no rushing.


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## Brookelynn716 (Apr 21, 2013)

I just got two 5 week old rats a week apart from each other and my first rat has gone crazy! The last week she would let me hold her and now she is running out of my hands. She did try to bite me once and nipped my son. I have to admit I'm a bit scared of her an she is so tiny! Not sure what to do or why she is so crazy! Did the immersion training work for you? Are you rats still very hyper?


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