# blue latex gloves



## madisonsale (Feb 9, 2013)

I know I probably right in that I shouldn't feel troubled by this, but just looking for some confirmation ... recently I have started to use blue latex gloves to carry out bedding changes etc in the girls cage. the first few times I was just at the bottom collecting up the dirty substrate, both girls were instantly interested in my blue hand and if I pulled my hand out of reach, they would go onto their hind legs as if they were sniffing the air. the other day I had a momentary lapse and went to hand one of them a half eaten treat with the glove on, and I got a bit of a munching! as soon as I take the glove off they are like normal, don't act any different, and will happily let me move anything within the cage with little to no interest or resistance, including them! but with the glove they are totally different.

now im assuming its a form of cage aggression towards something unfamiliar? although i'm not sure why because i've introduced new things to the cage without any aggression and theyve never been exposed to blue latex gloves (aggressively or otherwise) until I started using them, so I dont get the aggressive association?


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## nanashi7 (Jun 5, 2013)

They can't tell it is your hand, so they don't know it isn't something to bite or nibble at -- rats use their teeth to explore stuff, so it doesn't help that this novel thing was introduced in the presence of treats. It doesn't necessarily have to be aggression (unless you've seen other behaviors to suggest it), just that there is this new strange thing.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

I doubt that your rats would actually eat the glove, so you can toss them one so they can learn it's innocuous and not a threat, naturally without your hand inside.


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## Finnebon (Jul 15, 2013)

We would spot clean cages with latex gloves in the past, and for some reason, our rats would do the same thing. They would instantly want to bite our gloved hands. One boy would do it very hard. Normally they would never bite us, and wouldn't have much interest in the glove by itself, but when it was moving around in their cage (on our hand) they would go after it.


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## madisonsale (Feb 9, 2013)

tried putting just the glove in the cage, 1 ended up eating a 5p hole into it before i could get the glove off her


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