# Resident rat ignores new baby rats.



## SheerBliss (Feb 8, 2015)

Hello! 

I adopted two new male baby rats today (2 months old) and I'm introducing them to my older resident rat (2 years old). I put all three of them in a neutral area and I was fearing the worse since the older rat isn't neutered but he actually completely ignored them. They tried to smell him but he just peed on them a little and went exploring. I put all three of them in their new cage I got recently and he seemed more interested in the food haha. I was planning on separating them at night when I go to sleep and can't watch them but is this a good sign? I never introduced rats before so I'm not sure how they are supposed to act. From the videos I watched I never seen such indifference haha

Thanks


----------



## aliceinwonderland (Dec 17, 2013)

I guess it's good that he's indifferent to them rather than aggressive?


----------



## erikablanchettexo (Nov 25, 2014)

Leave them together unless your older rat is drawing blood. If you separate them and re-introduce it could cause more trouble than good.


----------



## Isamurat (Jul 27, 2012)

i agree. This sounds like a good intro to me. He doesn't see then as a threat and will learn to live them over the next few weeks


----------



## heckhund (Feb 16, 2015)

I have experience this before in intros. To get the resident rat to bond with the new ones I tried putting a little applesauce on the babies so the older rat had to lick it off, and I think it helped. Baby food, yogurt, or most other mushy foods rats love would work too.Another thing I did was just keeping them in a small enclosed area during intros. Just make sure you can reach in quickly incase a fight breaks out!


----------



## Isamurat (Jul 27, 2012)

I expect the small space made a big difference. I do carrier method intros and that puts them all in a small boring space to live in for as long as it takes for them to bond. This makes intros quite fast and also minimises the chances of your normal intro injuries (cause when a rat refuses to submit and runs away and is grabbed).


----------



## SheerBliss (Feb 8, 2015)

Thanks everyone! I put them in a bath tub and put a bit of vanilla extract on them and they groomed each other and now the three of them are great friends  When I put them together in their cage they sleep together like angels. I'm so happy there wasn't any bad fighting. He has tried to be dominate but I guess there are still too young to try and fight back so things have gone really smoothly


----------



## new_rattie_mommy (Aug 24, 2014)

My alpha boy did the same thing to my 5 week old girl when I brought her into the mix. I think the intro wasn't bad because she was a baby and wasn't a threat in any way but I think the reason he didn't embrace her in a good way either was cuz he had to maintain his alpha status and couldn't allow her to do things such as take food from him, and groom him, etc. like she did to my other boy who took her in as his baby cuz i think it would've made him feel threatened as alpha and he's stubborn like that lol. But it's not a bad thing either cuz they never fought and he did acknowledge her after a while. And now that she is 6 months old I realize she has a very dominant personality as well, almost the exact same personality as him and is now trying to steal his alpha position since she's big enough now to stand up to him (not really lol but she thinks so.) So they butt heads since they are so alike.

Maybe in your case it's just that since your boy lived alone (I assumed that from your post.) he didn't really have interest in other rats and will soon warm up to them. It hopefully isn't the case that he just doesn't like them lol. He obviously isn't an aggressive rat because he probably would've shown that already in the beginning. But hopefully one of the babies doesn't threaten him as alpha too much because he probably won't appreciate that. They'll work it out though as every pack has to. I would'nt worry about it much cuz you already got through the worst of it very smoothly as far as im concerned.


----------

