first photos of Krümel...

[ratcreature]

While I'm -- for the obvious reasons -- not in the giddy "new rats!" headspace, I did take some photos. Krümel is curious, but still somewhat shy, that is he still prefers to run and hide in a tube or a basket once he fetched treats from me, though he does come onto my arm when I coax him with food to get to said treats, and while he is already used to humans handling him he's not yet happy to be just picked up by me. So photos are a bit more difficult. Also I apologize for the blurriness.

Comments

[littlegreenworm.livejournal.com]

Awwwr! Rat love. :-)

Hopefully with time they'll settle down and be friends.

[ratcreature]

Maybe I'll see how they react to each other once Krümel is older and couldn't be killed so quickly, but I'm not going to risk trying with Krümel right now again. I mean, Ben wasn't interested in just asserting his dominance, he ignored the tiny ones at first and then suddenly killed Gonzo. I feel bad that Ben was so unfortunate that his brother died with just over a year and was alone for a while, but I gave Ben a chance and Gonzo paid with his life.

If all works out I'm going to take in another baby rat from a litter that's due soon so that Krümel won't have to life in isolation through no fault of his, and hope that with two rather young ones everything will go well (though my anxiety about introducing rats to each other is at an all time high right now), and that it won't be too hard on Krümel to have to be alone for a few weeks. I mean, I wish I could get him new company even sooner, but I don't like getting rats from pet stores, because I don't want to support a system that treats animals like any other random merchandise, but prefer to get them from hobby breeders, but obviously that way it takes a little while to get one. I mean, it would have been cool if there had been another male rat from Krümel's litter for me to take in, but they were all already spoken for.

[littlegreenworm.livejournal.com]

Kudos to you for avoiding the pet store trap. :-)

Did you try the vaporub trick? I read that you cleaned everything, which is important- but smells are smells. Sometimes if you put a tiny dab of vicks vaporub (or a similar stinky substance) on their noses, they'll smell the same to each other and accept each other more readily. Since they're just little ratties, you might want to rub it into your fingertips first; I'd imagine too much would really sting their noses.

I'm sorry that Ben is being so persnickety about making new friends. That's gotta be hard to lose a little one like that. :-(

[ratcreature]

Well, the cage was new so it wasn't his territory before, and at least based on what my vet told me when my rats had respiratory infections eucalyptus and other harsh essential oils are harmful to rats. I mean, I was advised to only let them inhalt steam with chamonile, never anything stronger, so I'm not sure rubbing vicks vaporub is such a good idea. What I might try should I make them meet again is to rub some of Ben's piss on Krümel before so he smells familiar, which is the smelling trick I heard of.

[littlegreenworm.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... well, that sounds like nature's way of doing it. ;-)

I'd never heard of strong smells being bad for ratties, but if your vet said no strong essential oils then, yeah- no vicks.

Good luck to you, and rattie scratches for your littles. :-)