why can't my rats at least fight outside the supposed quiet times?

[ratcreature]

One day one of my neighbors is going to make a noise complaint about the infernal racket my current rats produce when they squabble. They aren't injuring each other with more than some surface scratches and bites (mostly it's just flying fur), but they are squeaking at a volume that is incredible. Seriously, most of my previous rats didn't fight with squeaks this loud. They are almost as loud as fighting cats. And of course they are banging against the metal sides of their cage, both with their bodies, and slamming parts of the cage interior that are hung up, like tubes and branches, around. So there are loud clanging noises. All in the middle of the night. At least the fights don't last long, but still.

Comments

[lilacsigil]

I didn't know rats did that! I thought they were quiet little snuggly things, like in all the photos people post of their pet rats!

[ratcreature]

Rats squabble all the time. Male rats in particular. It's rare that ones that have grown up with each other fight so seriously that they injure each other badly, I think that only happens with rats they see as intruders in their territory. But they tussle for status in the group quite frequently, especially in their rowdy adolescence (though mine ought to start growing out of that phase by now, being past six months). It's hard to photograph because they are quite fast.

But you can watch it often. There is posturing, where two rats sort of circle each other closely, and are shoving a bit, to see if they can unbalance the other. They stand up on two legs as well and fluff their fur a bit to seem larger. Then they do a sort of grappling/boxing thing, where individual rats actually have different techniques. Mostly they stand on their hind legs and hit and push each other with the front paws, but sometimes they do maneuvers with kicking with the stronger hind legs. One of my former rats had a kicking technique that looked a bit like kung fu, and won him against larger and heavier rats, when usually the big, heavy rat will have the advantage, because it won't be turned over. Sometimes one rat will already be the looser at this point (before any audible squeaking or biting) and be unbalanced on its side/back, holding very still, and then there will be some forced grooming or stuff like that. Sometimes a more vindicative winner will hold the other rat down. Other times one of the rats will break it up and run away, then there may be a chase or not, and then things tend to devolve in the "squeaking furball" stage of fighting, where they are actually biting at each other, roll around, and my current ones make a lot of squeaking noises.

It's too fast to see much, but judging from the scabs and patches of lost fur the the bites mostly go at the neck and shoulder area. In these mostly "friendly" fights the bites aren't that bad or done at full strength, I don't think. Inbetween the rolling around there can be phases when they pause to stand and posture again, or sometimes they use topography strategically, and one rat flees to higher ground and defends from there. I've had the unfortunate occurrence that a rat fled under my blanket, the other gave chase, and it is about as unpleasant as you imagine to have a ball of two fighting rats with teeth and claws under the blanket with you.