Ratablog

Whew!

That sigh of relief you heard at about 4:40 Eastern was me receiving the good news about Kanga's abcess. She's looking better already, and we'll post a pic of the site later on...maybe.

Oliver's neutering stitches came out today, and after Dr. G extracted a promise from Abita to not sue him if he's wrong, we had an OK to let Oliver mingle with the girls. He had about an hour of playtime with them and it went beautifully!

Unlike the last time we tried an intro with him, we followed all the guidelines. Everyone got a big dab of almond extract on them so they'd all smell alike (that is, like cookies). The bed was neutralized with no toys and fresh blankets. We brought them all out at the same time and I had a dustpan in hand so I could separate them if I had to.

Fortunately, I didn't have to. The girls all sniffed Oliver immediately, then started ignoring him. Oliver climbed into the tray I used to carry the girls to playtime in; realizing what a distraction girl smell is, I dumped him out of the tray and got it out of the way. He was very nervous at first, not moving much, but after about fifteen minutes he started grooming, which I took as a sign of his relaxing. Then he started pooping, which I took as a sign that he's a slob. Typical male.

He did start to mingle with the girls, and they with him. He spent some time smelling their under-bits, and even crawled under the blanket with Neiko (broken up by us). They all had snacks together--well, as together as rats do when they split to different places to keep other rats from stealing their bit of ginger bread. Abita put it best: After thirty minutes, they were ignoring each other like old friends.

Today I dipped my finger in the almond extract and I put a good amount on them. Tomorrow, we'll use a q-tip to put a small, measured amount on them, and on Thursday or Friday we'll try no extra scent. If everything goes really well, we'll put them underneath a cage topper during playtime over the weekend to see how they get along in an enclosed space...and hopefully, next week we'll be able to give the girl's cage (the biggest one) a good scrubbing so we can move Oliver in with them.

Posted by Publius at October 11, 2005 09:49 PM