@Zumbador I'm just going through something similar; one of my older boys is being bullied by the younger ones, and I'm going to have to split them up by age so he has company. It feels like a failure as the point of getting the younger ones was to keep the older ones company!

I'll be letting the non-bullied older one free roam with the younger ones to try reducing problems with any future reintegration. How about you, any such plans or thoughts?

@ocnurb My situation is exactly the same. I got the younger ones because I thought my Saffy needed company, and I felt terribly guilty when they decided to bully her.

I have been trying to get them to socialise during free roam, which worked at first, but since I separated them, they are actually MORE aggressive when they meet, which makes sense, as by separating them I turned them into rival groups.

I realise now that I should have gotten one baby rat, which would have been easier to integrate than 3 adults! So that's my learning curve.

It's confusing because I think if I were to ask Saffy, her answer would differ from moment to moment. When she's sleeping with them in the rat pile, she'd say "I wanna be with my sisters forever!" but when they're all three chasing her and beating her up, she'd say "OMG please save me and put me somewhere safe where these monsters can never find me again!"

So I have to just do my best with my inadequate human understanding.

@Zumbador @ocnurb What would happen if you did NOT separate them by age but instead put one of the young sisters with Saffy? (I assume you don’t wanna separate the sisters because they are close, but might this break up the group dynamics?)

If it makes you feel better, I made exactly the same mistake - got a second cat so mine wouldn’t be alone when I left the house, and they never got on. (I know, cats solitary unlike rats. But he grew up as a pair and had serious separation anxiety.)

@clarissawam @ocnurb

I did think about that and tried it for a bit but I wasn't sure how stressful it was for them. The quietest of the sisters, who might work for this, is also the most anxious and I don't know how that would work out.

I don't feel confident enough in my ability to read rat body language to judge these things!