Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and beginning April 20th, 2021 (Eastern Time) the Yahoo Answers website will be in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.
Trending News
My pet rat is suddenly biting?
I have two 8 week old male rats, both are neutered, their names are Hammy and Hewie and I am a fairly new rat owner.
Hammy has bitten me twice today and drawn blood. He is doing the lunge, bite, retreat. The only thing that upset the routine is I had my kitchen painted today, but I aired out my apartment before I brought them out and tried to get as much of the smell out as I could. The second bite happened a few minutes ago and I am lost.
If anyone has any advise to remedy this I thank you. He usually is just a sweet guy and climbs onto my hand and now he is doing this while Hewie on the other hand is acting normal...so I just don't know.
3 Answers
- The First DragonLv 78 years agoFavorite Answer
8 weeks is still pretty young.
Biting is pretty unusual in pet rats. Some mother rats will bite when they have a litter, but when the pups are weaned they go back to not biting.
Young pet rats that have never been handled may bite because they think you are food. They see food coming into the cage when the hand comes, so they think the hand is part of it. But these rats stop biting very quickly when they are handled and realize people are not food.
Other than that, in my experience, biting seems to be a part of a rat's temperament, some of its wild ancestors' traits showing up again, most likely. Because wild Norway rats do bite and are very difficult to tame.
Anyway, it may be this rat is growing up and developing its adult character. The pet rat I had that would bite this way, I was not able to train out of it. I just had to be a little more careful handling her. But she would also bite a cage mate, which is not so good. I put her in a cage with two other females, though, and the two of them apparently taught her manners. After a couple of days she didn't bite them anymore, and they lived happily together.
I don't know whether this is the problem with your rat, but it is a possibility.
- Anonymous6 years ago
He's biting you because he fu•cking hates you. You're an animal abuser and you deserve to be locked up in jail for 20 years.
