# Male rat biting and dragging another male, need advice!!



## Balkanrat (Sep 14, 2016)

Hi

So I have two boy rats, around 6 weeks old: Charlie and Valko. I just dealt with Valko's biting problem through forced socialization (not any serious biting but scared me anyway) and he can now be picked up and caressed without problems. He seems to enjoy walking around my legs and arms and I think I'm making progress. The other rat, Charlie, has been calm and friendly from day one (they are from the same litter).

They have domination games pretty much every day, most of them seem to be won by Charlie, who ends up standing on Valko's tummy while Valko helplessly tries to get loose. Although Charlie sits/stands on Valko at the end of the game, he never bites him, but Valko does...... Many times a day, without obvious reason (to me), Valko bites and drags Charlie on the back/side. It doesn't bleed and Charlie doesn't complain much, but it looks quite aggressive to me.

What's going on in my cage? I am new to having two rats (had only one as a child), and I don't know if this is normal. Should I do something? I don't want to interfere with their hierarchy thing, but I also don't want bad behavior to be established or Charlie to get hurt.

Any input is welcome.


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## dashielle89 (Apr 24, 2012)

If there are no injuries I wouldn't be too worried. I know some people believe in interfering in their rats' squabbling more than others, I tend to leave them alone unless it seems to be a serious issues.

I've had quite a few that liked to drag their cagemates around that same way. Sometimes they'd just bite the other rat's butt and drag them across the cage floor, sometimes it seemed like they were trying to get them off something and they'd drag them out of a bed/hammock. I don't exactly know why they do it, but it hasn't ever caused a problem for me.


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## moonkissed (Dec 26, 2011)

Sometimes baby rats can play quite rough. It will look like a scary fight to the death type thing but just them play wrestling lol I breed and have seen tons and tons of babies and even the sweetest most loving babies can play insane lol

The general rule is if there is no blood no injury then just leave it be. They will settle down with time/age. But I would also suggest giving them lots of outside of the cage play time and toys to help burn off so much energy. Babies have boundless energy and without anything very stimulating they often turn to each other for entertainment and it can be a bit much. It helps for babies to give them multiple times out of the cage instead of just a single time each day. because they will have moments of energy. 

But the dragging is definitely strange. I do often see this with adults who are trying to boss around babies. It is more of a dominate thing, but as babies it could still be them playing as adults if that makes sense? It is hard to say. Babies at that age really do not have the I guess you could say drive to be dominant like adults would.

but... if he is attacking you it could mean he has some serious issues. Is the biting nips or when he bites does it leave marks, injury, blood to you? 
In his case I would likely suggest neutering if you can find a good vet. Because he likely will get worse with his brother.


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## Balkanrat (Sep 14, 2016)

Thanks for your replies Dashielle and Moonkissed, so far I can't see any injuries on Charlie, so I guess I will wait and see.

*"But I would also suggest giving them lots of outside of the cage play time and toys to help burn off so much energy. Babies have boundless energy and without anything very stimulating they often turn to each other for entertainment and it can be a bit much"*-------- I think this might play a role in this issue, it's only now after some week and a half that they dare to come out of the cage so they haven't really had so much chance to explore or run, I hope this will get better slowly.
*"but... if he is attacking you it could mean he has some serious issues. Is the biting nips or when he bites does it leave marks, injury, blood to you? In his case I would likely suggest neutering if you can find a good vet. Because he likely will get worse with his brother"* ------no he hasn't really hurt me, only nips which he withdrew when I showed him it hurt. Also, he has stopped with nipping completely now ( I hope).

Again, thanks for sharing your knowledge.


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## BlackAce (Apr 18, 2013)

I have two boy rats around 4 months now. We got them from a shelter when our previous boys had passed, and because of this we got them just shy of 4 weeks. Anyways for about a month one of them, Blayze, was really mouthy. He'd just nip or put his teeth on you. But it never hurt. I think it takes time for some rats to figure out what to do with skin, especially babies! And sure enough he stopped mouthing and is quite the licker now. I've had a couple other rats do this as babies too. All grew out of it. He might just be confused as to what he's supposed to do with your hand at this point.


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## BlackAce (Apr 18, 2013)

Well sorry for double posting but I just realized I swapped my responses to the two posts I wanted to answer. My apologies, must be the sleep deprivation! 

Anyways, I was going to say I've had this happen with my previous pair of boys. I never quite understood what it meant either, but it never really escalated into anything worse. I noticed that it happened after a particularly intense play session, or scuffle. But never left any marks on the other one, in fact they never even squeaked in protest. Just kind of went along with it lol.


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## Balkanrat (Sep 14, 2016)

Thanks for the input Blackace, so happy to hear that your rats grew out of it! I think Valko was indeed quite confused about this with skin, he wasn't handled much before (they were supposed to be snake food......). After I made it clear for him that biting or nipping me isn't OK, he seems to have stopped completely, so I'm positive. 
We will see how the _dragging his brother thing_ continues, but I think the more I handle them and the more comfortable they are, the more chance for this behavior to stop


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## Balkanrat (Sep 14, 2016)

BlackAce said:


> Anyways, I was going to say I've had this happen with my previous pair of boys. I never quite understood what it meant either, but it never really escalated into anything worse. I noticed that it happened after a particularly intense play session, or scuffle. But never left any marks on the other one, in fact they never even squeaked in protest. Just kind of went along with it lol.


 Yes,Charlie is the same! he just takes the dragging without protesting!


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