now this is strange

[BoAddict]

i have a group of rats together 4.3 they have been together since they were old enough to sex as i had lack of space for a bit
well they are now med's and there doesnt seem to be any fighting and im getting babies does this seem wierd?

all my others are in 1.4 groups

im gonna have to take some pics of some of the cuter babies like my grey head with grey stripe down the back and the rest of him is white

i also will soon have a grey with red eyes so cool looking

but back to my question ive taken males and put them in a group b4 after they have bred and they fight like 90 even to the death so why is this group not fighting

i normally separate them to boys and girls as soon as i can and i had 40 males small living together and i was asked why dont they fight i said coz they have never bred dont know if this is right or not but it made sense to me.


if anyone knows the answer let me know

mike

[Syco]

I really don't know the answer to your question, but I had the same thing happen to me recently with a group of mice. I seperate all of my feeders, all males in one tank and females in the other. I must have not been paying attention the last time I did this because I found two *very* pregnant females in the male tank. There was no fighting and no deaths in this tank (other than the ones taken out to feed my snakes ) and at the time I found the females there were 6 adult males in the tank with them.
Maybe it's because they were raised together, but I always thought like you, if there was a female around the males were going to fight. I pulled the two females and gave them a male from that tank and put two other females in, so I don't know if the fighting would have started after the babies were born.

[Linds]

If I've allowed both rats or mice to grow up in the same quarters, with limited space, I find they don't fight. Maybe even a few times a year a female accidentally gets tossed in to the males bin when weaning and I don't notice until I pick up a pear shaped rat quite sometime later If there is no personal space, they won't fight. Also your rats are still quite young.

Now as for your 40 males living together and not fighting, that isn't because they haven't been bred. It is because they are all males, they fight when they are being possessive of females. Females = competition.

[sapphire_moon]

they also fight when they don't know each other. The reason your 4.3 don't fight is because they have been together since like 2-3wks old. That does help. But boy oh boy, your boys must have a ton of buck grease on them! lol