I have two female rats. Dose anyone know the difference of Playing and Fighting?? THX
2007-01-10 16:17:18 · 16 answers · asked by ryandudevegas 1 in Pets ➔ Other - Pets
Rats rough and tumble a lot, especially when they are young. Usually two female rats live peacefully together their whole lives.
Play-fighting can certainly look like fighting. They will assume a boxing position, or one will pin the other under her body and power-groom her until the pinned girl squeaks "uncle". The pinned girl may even seem to freeze in one place for a few seconds.They may even change position as alpha rat throughout their lives, or one will establish herself as alpha for life. This is normal play behavior.
Sometimes they need to resolve a power struggle. If we care-takers keep intervening this will continue until resolved in spite of us. Prolonged, it will lead to stress for both the rats. General concensus is that if there is no blood being drawn, no high-pitched fear squeaks; if both rats are otherwise getting along, no one in cowering in corner, or appears to be petrified with fear, then leave them alone to work it out. If injuries are occuring then you have to separate them, possibly for life.
Rat play:
http://search.yahoo.com/search?search=how+do+rats+play&ei=UTF-8&fr=ks-ans&ico-yahoo-search-value=http%3A%2F%2Frds.yahoo.com%2F_ylt%3DAnYM54NvMNPtXBeKUqFf2zcazKIX%2FSIG%3D111gjvvgj%2F*-http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.yahoo.com%2Fsearch&ico-wikipedia-search-value=http%3A%2F%2Frds.yahoo.com%2F_ylt%3DAs6qPmKbEGuHV570VYkOMTkazKIX%2FSIG%3D11ia1qo58%2F**http%253a%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSpecial%253aSearch&p=how+do+rats+play
In old age, when one gets sick, instinct might tempt her healthy cagemate to attempt to oust her. Some instincts are still strong in our domestics pets, and even though there is no predator about, an ill rat makes the colony vulnerable to predators. I have heard of this happening from other rat-keepers on some of the forums that I'm on, but in the hundreds of rats I've had over the years, I've never seen it.
And please people, if you can't say something nice about someone's beloved pet rat, don't say anything at all. Rats mean as much to us as your dog or cat means to you.
spazrats
http://spazrats.tripod.com
Specializing in the health and care of pet rats since 1997
Rat slave since age 38
2007-01-10 18:12:27 · answer #1 · answered by spazrats 6 · 4⤊ 0⤋
If there's some squeaking and one pinning the other it's usually play. But if there's squeaking, blood, and the use o teeth then it's fight. If this happens separate them as soon as possible.
2014-05-22 01:38:05 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
If you like at my profile picture, the two rats are play fighting, they usually look like they are boxing each other and will normally groom each other after to say 'no hard feelings'. When rats fight, they will be loud and the dominate rat will go for parts of the body that will hurt (e.g nip the tail, bite the ear, leave cuts on the back). Sadly the rats you see in my picture went from play fighting to actual fighting and had to be split up, the white rat got pretty beaten up. I noticed when my rats started to fight for real they would not cuddle each other at night, or groom each other and one would try to stay away. I hope this helps, just watch your rats fight, you'll soon see if they are playing or not.
2013-12-11 10:24:55 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
When there is blood they are fighting.
If it's only a little blood, and they gradually fight less, it's okay. I used to have one aggressive rat who fought with the others at first, but they straightened her out and then they got along fine.
But if they keep fighting day after day after day, if one of them seems unhappy and nervous all the time, or if the biting gets bad, it's probably best to take out the aggressive one.
2007-01-10 16:26:21 · answer #4 · answered by The First Dragon 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
i have 2 female rats too and i can't say i know the difference between playing and fighting. It's very hard to tell, but whenever one of them sqeaks i try to break it up in fear that 1 of them is getting hurt. i think that they're usually playing, but i would never want 1 of my baby's to get hurt.
2007-01-11 01:00:20 · answer #5 · answered by skye 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Bloodshed is a good sign. I had a male and a female I kept in the same cage and the male ended up with a HUGE sore on his neck from the female biting him. It went away when I took her out. Rats play fight all the time. Use your judgment.
2007-01-10 17:57:58 · answer #6 · answered by Erbilicious 2 · 0⤊ 2⤋
Anytime there is bloodshed, or one seems to be trying to get away, they should be separated into separate cages. My one rat beat up the other so bad that it was losing hair and weight. Once I separated the two, the other healed.
2007-01-10 16:26:12 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I love a good cat fight. Never thought about a rat fight though.
2007-01-10 16:27:50 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 2⤋
when animals like rats fight or play...the actions r almost the same
u'll know they were fighting if one or both dies
2007-01-10 16:28:42 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
I consider myself an authority on several things,but not rats !!
2007-01-10 16:21:08 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 3⤋