As they're males I wouldn;t advise putting them together on the first night. Just make sure your current boys cages are cleaned out as well as possible so there's minimal smell, introduce them somewhere neutral and keep their cages beside eachother for a few nights (though not right beside eachother, one of my boys got a finger bitten off like that >_<)

Once they're used to eachother they'll be fine though boys are more relaxed and fight less after they've gotten to know eachother. My girls still squabble even months after they've been introduced and it's practically impossible to introduce new rats as I have one girl who really dislikes new rats


Peace
Akai-Chan

I think I will let them settle in a night before introducing them as it will be a shock to them, I just spoke to the owner and she said they were 9months old not 6months and that the black dumbo was very friendly but the other was a little shy but not nasty, I am going to go and see them tomorrow at 2pm

it must be difficult if you have one who wont tolerate new rats, do you have any pictures of yours?

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I had one (Cinnamon) who can be very temperamental and always the hardest to intro new rats to but she nearly always comes round in the end.

Actually saying that there was one (Reggie - a girl but i did not name!) she hated thought i had cracked it and they had been living together a couple weeks when i heard the oddest squeal coming from the cage. One of the neutered boys (Strat) had been picking on Reggie a bit that evening not really nasty just trying to mount her all the time and she did not like it. Well when i went in i assumed it was Strat on here as Strat and Cinnamon have similar colourings. Lets just say had i have known it was Cinnamon i would not have put my hand inside the fabric igloo!

One very bitten and bloody Reggie and one very bitten finger which caused me to get blood poisoning and required me to go onto a strong course of antibiotics - ouch!

Reggie and her sister Bella ended up living the rest of their lives in a separate cage.

Well I tried to introduce my favourite girl (Sky) to them months ago and the other 3 loved her but I have a russian blue dumbo girl who hates other rats. She was always lunging at her and poor Sky didn't know what to do because she wasn't much used to other rats. She ended up living out her days with my boy rat as I didn't want her to be on her own.

Have a few pics somewhere... I'll get them on photobucket in a sec and upload them

Peace
Akai-Chan

now that sounds painful, I think I will invest in some thick gardening gloves just in case I need to separate them at some point

if they cannot be introduced I will separate them and keep them that way but I'm hoping I can have them living together, it would be the ideal situation but not the end of the world if they cant

I look forward to seeing the pictures

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They should be fine, once males have been introduced on neutral territory and had a sniff of eachother/started playing together they should be fine in a clean cage. Best of luck to you

Also, photos of my girls and boy are being slowly uploaded to small animal gallery. Will do the rest of them later

Peace
Akai-Chan

thank you

I have got them both home now, but one is very over weight, I would say at least 3 times the size he should be, you can see the fat hanging from him, but he is very sweet and licks me I think a diet is in order for him.

They obviously love them but gave them too many treats and the food is a hight calorie one with fattening bits in it. They are both lovely though and the cage is very nice as well, they gave me the rats and the cage for free they said that a good home was more important

I will go and have a look at your pictures now

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Wonderful ^_^ Must see pics soon! Give the fat one lots of exercise and limit his treat intake and he'll be fine. Problem with boys that I've found is they sleep a LOT and they like to cuddle a lot when they come out instead of run around. Lazt little buggars they are

Good luck with the introductions!

Peace
Akai-Chan

thank you

he is one huge rat, its going to take some time to get his weight to a normal size but it will be worth it Yep I will take some pics asap if I have a wide angles lens here

yep they are much lazier than the girls but much cuddlier

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