# Sweet rat bites me accidentally when hand-feeding...



## aeronea (Mar 30, 2016)

Hi there,I've just adopted three lovely male rats. 2 of them are on the more timid side, but I'm confident they'll improve with time. The most timid of the three is very very food oriented and clearly becomes over excited when treats are introduced. I have no problems putting in my hand in the cage and having the timid rats come over and sniff/lick my hand, I'm even working my way up to lightly petting them, so they're very sweet and have no aggression problems. However, when hand-feeding treats as a way to build trust, the most timid rat (Bear) often grabs the treat out of my hand SUPER fast and often doesn't double check to see what is my hand and what is the treat. I've been lightly grazed a few times, but last night he accidentally bit me and drew blood. I was pretty shocked, I know he didn't mean to do this at all (I'm 100% sure he just misjudged where the spaghetti ended and where my hand began), but now I'm very nervous feeding him treats. What should I do to correct this behavior of his? My other two boys take the treats so gently from my hands! I wish he would follow their lead.


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## shibezone (Feb 5, 2018)

Congrats on your new little mans!

What I'd do with him since he seems to want to grab as fast as he can and run away at this point is to give him some baby food or something else soft and liquidy out of a spoon. He'll have to sit close to you to eat it and this should help acclimate him to you being near, so he won't feel like he needs to get away quickly as much in the future. That'll help a lot with him taking more time to see what you have versus just take it. Once he does well with the spoon you can offer the treat on your fingers. This is one of those really typical hand training exercises everyone kinda starts out with, but it serves a few purposes!

Another thing you can try that I do with the rats is I'll say the name of whatever I'm giving them as I hand it to them, that way if I don't have anything I'll tell them 'just fingers' and they've learned not to get grabby. This obviously is a really slow training method.
Also, see if you can notice a pattern for when he gets overexcited or snatchy so you can figure out when's not a good time to hand him things. I have a boy who used to be a nippy little goblin once he stopped being scared of me, in fact out of my three he's the only one who has bitten me and he's even tagged my roommate a few times. He's much better now, but there are still things he's really bad about: Trying to bite my fingers through the bars of the cage, trying to bite my fingers if I stick them in the door of their travel carrier and ESPECIALLY if I've just woken him up from a deep sleep, no matter where he is.


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## aeronea (Mar 30, 2016)

shibezone said:


> Congrats on your new little mans!What I'd do with him since he seems to want to grab as fast as he can and run away at this point is to give him some baby food or something else soft and liquidy out of a spoon. He'll have to sit close to you to eat it and this should help acclimate him to you being near, so he won't feel like he needs to get away quickly as much in the future. That'll help a lot with him taking more time to see what you have versus just take it. Once he does well with the spoon you can offer the treat on your fingers. This is one of those really typical hand training exercises everyone kinda starts out with, but it serves a few purposes!Another thing you can try that I do with the rats is I'll say the name of whatever I'm giving them as I hand it to them, that way if I don't have anything I'll tell them 'just fingers' and they've learned not to get grabby. This obviously is a really slow training method.Also, see if you can notice a pattern for when he gets overexcited or snatchy so you can figure out when's not a good time to hand him things. I have a boy who used to be a nippy little goblin once he stopped being scared of me, in fact out of my three he's the only one who has bitten me and he's even tagged my roommate a few times. He's much better now, but there are still things he's really bad about: Trying to bite my fingers through the bars of the cage, trying to bite my fingers if I stick them in the door of their travel carrier and ESPECIALLY if I've just woken him up from a deep sleep, no matter where he is.


 Thank you so much! That's exactly the thing I was looking for. My first instinct was to put something like applesauce/etc. on my fingers but I knew that wouldn't work out great at the moment most likely, so I'll absolutely start with a spoon. Anything to keep him around for a little while longer rather than taking the treat and running. Yes, I think mine accidentally bit me when he was just woken up from his sleep, apparently that's something I have to be a little cautious of as well!


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## JimboJones (Jan 29, 2019)

If you put apple sauce or similar liquid foods on your fingers, won't there be a chance that they bite too?


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## shibezone (Feb 5, 2018)

There's always a chance but teaching them how to take the food nicely from the spoon cuts down on that really considerably. Rats don't really like biting metal spoons all that much, so they learn they don't need to bite the soft food to have it. I think once they stop trying to bite or snatch the spoon is about when you can transition them to taking food on your fingers because by that time they've probably started to be acclimated to sitting near you.

When starting to offer your fingers the biggest thing I can tell you is do NOT offer big globs of food, only take little swipes of it because they sometimes will try to bite the glob to pick it up and could get you.


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## Chove (Mar 23, 2014)

JimboJones said:


> If you put apple sauce or similar liquid foods on your fingers, won't there be a chance that they bite too?


 That's why you start with a spoon -- they'll only bite the spoon once and they'll realise that they don't have to bite yogurty fingers to get the treat! I've experienced a bit of nipping with young rats, usually I move my finger away (not removing my hand in case they learn "biting the hand means it leaves me alone") and say "No" or make little high-pitched squeaking sound like rats do when they're annoyed. The main thing is that they don't know they're hurting you, so if you can let them know you don't like it they should stop nipping fingers once they work out that it hurts you.


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## shibezone (Feb 5, 2018)

Yep exactly what Chove said, communicate with them in a way they understand! I always use the same squeak for 'Too hard!' when my rats nibble too hard (nibbles are gentle exploratory bites, very normal and nothing to worry about), so pick a sound or word and stick with it!
If they won't knock it off you can also gently shove them away. Rats will shove each other to say they're not interested or really don't like something, I had to do this a lot to teach my rats not to nibble my socks so hard because - surprise - my feet are in them!

Similar to what Chove said, too, if you need to pull your hand away from them because you're being bitten do so calmly and slowly, sudden movements can either startle them or incite them to want to chase your hand, both of which can mean another bite.

One other thing: Not every time you feel teeth means they're biting, sometimes they may use their teeth to help scrape up food from your fingers, it feels a little weird at first but it absolutely doesn't hurt a bit! They have excellent bite control, once they know how hard to bite something you really shouldn't have any issues!


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