Alabama Ghost Horde Intros

Since we're all getting used to these new kids, I'll start off with a roll call:

The home team in cage one The Ghost Boys:
Tucker
Black Pete
Melon and Skinner the Hairless Terror Twins

The new additions--The Ghost Girls:
Cage Two: Black Aggie 'Aggs' my Tilty Girl
Cage Three: Siamese Girl (still nameless)
Cage Four (I decided to keep their pre-adoption names):
Darcy (Blue Dumbo)
Devon (Blue Variegated Blaze--my grandma rat)
Zanna (Burmese--my great auntie rat)




I decided to try some preliminary intros today to see what I was dealing with. I did two 30- 40 minute sessions w/ my little spray water bottle and separation towel at the ready. First session was Darcy, Aggie, and Still Nameless Siamese. The second, later, was with Siamese and Black Pete.

Sesson one. I kept old ladies Devon and Zanna out of the mix for now. I'm going do this in stages and save them for later sessions.

What I'm seeing so far: Aggs is a little pistol instigator. She immediately began sidling and dominating both Darcy and Siamese.

Darcy was in heat ---those fluttering ears are hysterical. I've never seen that first hand-- and tended to tolerate Aggie with more minor protests and did her best to avoid confrontation.

Siamese clearly was un-rat socialized, and while she didn't seek out the other rats, stayed varying degrees of poofy and in a butt sidle position in 'her' corner most of the time.

We had a couple of noisy squabbles with Aggie and each of the girls. Then they began calming down a little at a time. Before it was over, I could tell that Darcy and Aggie could eventually do well together but if Siamese would do well at all, it was going to take a LOT of patience and work.

After giving them all break for most of the day, I took Siamese out again and put her with Black Pete, just to see how she would do with a male. He's much more sensible than the hairless, and of course has been neutered long enough to be safe in with the females. It was much more dramatic this time. Out of the gate, they both poofed up and had a big noisy brief rat ball then bolted to separate corners. Then it was as if Pete, who'd never seen a female in his life, had gotten a feel for what he was dealing with. He eased over to her where she sat poofy and stiff in her corner and then just sat there. I wasn't sure for a few seconds, but it became clear to me pretty quickly he was playing ratty diplomat wid da pretty gal. He wiggled his butt back and forth as if letting her know his size, and then touched his nose to her hip and sat still. She was poised to fight or flight, but he wasn't triggering her so she just stayed frozen.

Then he slowly lay down and buried his nose in her fur and closed his eyes. Eventually he started bruxing. It was like he'd found the meaning of life and she was it. After about 20 minutes like this I watched as the poof and tension slowly eased out of her body and she settled a little bit. Not completely relaxed, but not nerve wracked either . She kept turning her head to look at him, and then look back at me. I could see the gears spinning so hard in her head. "What am I supposed to do with this?"

They lay next to each other for at least 30 minutes. Pete eventually screwed it up by trying to climb on her back and she told him in no uncertain terms 'not without my permission'. However, I see potential for Siamese to eventually get along with some or all of the boys once she gets used to the idea of Other Rats at all.

Oh! Here's a cool thing. I've got a 'rat sonar' device so I can hear all the ultra sonic sounds rats make. I had it on to see what I could hear, and maybe so it could let me better gage ratty stand offs.

Most of the time, the sounds I hear come through a short bursts of static. Like morse code 'k-k-keh-k-k'. But whenever Aggs would try to dominate Darcy-in-heat, Darcy would do the tail lift ear flutter thing and I'd hear a distinctive short pop of static 'dit-doot-doot' followed by a slow drawn out and clear rat squeak sound, not static.--first louder and higher pitched, and then slowly dropping in pitch and intensity. Like a ratty version of a provocative come hither MEEEE-Yooow.