Rats may have a bad reputation, making most people prefer to call an exterminator than keep them as pets. However, rats are very intelligent and social animals, which make great pets for individuals or families. Therefore, if you keep rats as pets, you need to know their behavior to take good care of them.
So, why are my rats fighting? Rats usually start to play-fight when they are young as a way of interacting with each other. The skills the rats learn while play-fighting come in handy during real fights in adulthood. Rats will seriously fight to try to establish a hierarchy, obtain food or find a mate.
Serious fights can cause problems for the weaker rat; therefore, you need to watch your rats whenever they fight. You can distinguish play-fighting from serious fighting by watching their mannerisms.
Play fighting involves wrestling, pouncing, and pinning. The rat pinned on its back will initiate fighting as soon as it is released. Serious fighting involves biting, scratching, and kicking.
If kept in a group, most animals will fight at some point to establish a hierarchy. As a pet owner, constant fighting can cause anxiety because you cannot predict if they will be safe when you leave them unsupervised. Read on to find out if rats will kill each other and why they eat each other.
Rats are social creatures and would coexist with each other very well. However, sometimes, rats fight a lot, and one ends up inflicting fatal injuries on the other. There are a few reasons why a rat would kill another rat.
Rats will kill each while fighting for food, defending their territories, and due to hormonal imbalance causing the rat to attach other rats and kill them. Rats are scavengers and will move around in cities and suburbs looking for food to eat.
When you keep rats in your home and fail to provide them with adequate food, they will start to fight for the little food they get. The lack of enough food causes increased aggression, and the stronger rats will kill the weaker rats.
Some rats, especially male rats, are extremely territorial and fight other male rats trespassing into their territory. Some male rats usually release urine around their enclosure and fight other rats that come into the marked zone. If you introduce another male rat into the enclosure, chances are the older rat might not like the presence of the new rat and will fight and kill it.
Hormones can also increase the aggression levels of a rat, making it fight and kill other rats. During their development age between 6 to 12 weeks, fluctuating hormone levels might increase aggressiveness and stress, making your rats violent. Nursing mother rats have high oxytocin levels, increasing their aggression and attacking and killing any other rat near its pups.
Why Did My Rat Kill and Eat My Other Rat?
It is unfortunate when a rat kills another one, but it is usually grim and traumatizing when you find your rat feeding on its companion. Here are some of the reasons why your rat killed and ate your other rat.
Your rat will kill and eat other rats due to starvation, to clean their enclosure, and the fact that they are scavengers. Rats killing each other due to starvation is a rare event because they are excellent scavengers and know how to find food in remote areas.
However, when you keep rats as pets and never feed them, extreme hunger will increase their aggression levels, and the stronger rat will kill and eat the weaker rat. If you want to avoid such a horrendous moment, make sure you feed your rats regularly.
Your rat will kill and eat another rat to clean up the enclosure. If one rat dies in the enclosure and you do not remove the dead body immediately, the live rats will eat it. A dead rat usually produces an awful smell that will attract scavengers who might come and kill the other rats.
Therefore, to avoid attracting scavengers, your rat will start eating the dead rat to protect itself. Eating the dead rat also helps prevent the disease that killed the first rat.
Rats are scavengers and will eat anything edible they find in their path. Rats are not above eating other dead rats; therefore, when a rat dies near other rats, it’s dinner time. However, rats do not immediately eat their dead companion as soon as the death occurs.
They usually wait for a few days. Research shows rats experience grief and know the other rat is missing. When a death occurs, remove the dead rat from the cage immediately and try to find a new companion for your rat.
Do Pet Rats Eat Dead Rats?
Cannibalism is an act several animals engage in under different circumstances. As an owner of pet rats, you might be worried that your pet rats might resort to cannibalism if one dies in the enclosure.
On some occasions, pet rats will eat dead rats in their enclosure. Pet rats usually eat dead rats if you take too long to remove them from the enclosure. The smell of a dead rat usually attracts predators, and to increase their chances of survival, rats would eat the remains to get rid of the smell.
It is normal behavior for both rats in the wild and those kept in your home as pets. As soon as your pet rat smells the dead rat, its natural instincts will take over and start eating the dead rat.
Pet rats can suffer sudden death; therefore, you need to keep an eye on any symptoms that show your rat might be ill or injured. Rats are good at hiding symptoms because showing them would be a sign of weakness.
Inspect your rats often to check for signs of injuries or illness and separate them if they keep fighting all the time. If you wake up and find a dead rat in the cage, remove it and take it to a vet for an autopsy. The vet could tell you the cause of the death, and maybe you might have time to save the other rat from dying.
You should find a companion for your rat as soon as possible because rats are social animals and might get stressed if they live alone for a long time. You should get two younger rats because it will be difficult for the older rat to pick on two younger rats. The two younger rats will also stay together after the older rat dies. Ensure you introduce the younger rats correctly to avoid unnecessary aggressions.
Finally
Rats love to play fight, but you need to know the difference between play fighting and serious fighting. If your rats are seriously fighting, do not use your hands to separate them, they might bite and scratch your fingers. Use an inanimate object such as a rod to separate the fight. When one of your rats dies in the enclosure, make sure you remove it before the other rat starts to eat it.
