How to stop my rat from biting my hand?
I have what they’d call a semi-handled rat. He’s an adult and quite aggressive. I try to take him out of his cage and he won’t budge, instead he bites my fingers as hard as he can. I don’t know weather to tame him or send him to an animal shelter.
Tagged with: adult • animal shelter • fingers
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set a mouse trap
Is he neutered? If not that is probably the problem. If he is neutered already, then i don’t know what to advise since he won’t let you handle him *at all*. Maybe try putting some thick gloves on just so you can pick him up and get him out of there without him hurting you. Then give him a treat that he really loves and if he wants to hide while he eats it, make a sort of hiding place/cave with a hand towel folded up on your tummy that he can run into. Only give him those treats when you are holding him or he is on you so he associates getting something yummy with being handled. Handle him as much as possible everyday. When you first take him out of the cage try to coax him out gently before resorting to just picking him up.
idk how big your rat is and if this would work but i had the same problem with my hamster. i used a toilet paper roll or paper towel roll to coax her out. she would get curious and crawl into the tube and then i could pick her up and handle her fine. she would bite me when i stuck my hand in her cage (and im guessing that this is why your rat does it too) because it was her territory and i was invading it.
i am so sorry that he bites you.
but he sounds like a perfect rat for a friend rat!
no rat should go through life without a rat friend. you should always have 2 or more same sex rats because they are highly social and you can’t be there all the time. the second rat should be a hand raised rat from a local 4H kid or a person raising rats in their home (check rat forums or craigslist). you will love that new rat. then the only job your current rat will have is to snuggle and keep company with your new rat.
there are many ways to try to hand train your current rat, you can try those (ie: open cage on a table and wait for rat to come to you on its own to get treats from you) but no matter what.. i think he’s bitter from being alone with no friend.
if you wont get him a friend or if you have no patience for it please try not to go the shelter route, many shelters don’t have the facilities/networking to handle adopting out rats. Please try one of the many rat rescues if it really has to come to that.
good luck to u and ur rattie