Lab Rat Socializing HELP
During the semester I decided to adopt to two female lab rats from my university and named them Rumple and Minze. I love them a lot and they seem to sort of trust me, but also have bitten and drawn blood a number of times (pretty damn deep too). I’m using these handler gloves (not professional leather, just bite resistant) which seem to help a lot when I let them out and need to bring them back in/get them used to the shape and movement of my hand but worry it may hinder the process of habituation with my hand rather than help it in the long run. I haven’t found too many accounts of people dealing with truly bitey rats where, if I even leave my hand still and out (nowhere near them), they’ll specifically go up my hand and bite it. While I haven’t needed stitches for any of the bites so far, I don’t think they’ve held back much further than that level on multiple occasions which just makes me wonder if I’m approaching this all wrong? The following is a list of activities I’ve been doing with them for habituation:
- exclusively hand feeding, 2) general target training (follow a stick with their nose and they get a yummy treat), 3) groom shaping with wet foods by smearing the food on the back of my hand, 4) free roam play while I sit in the same room and let them investigate me freely, 5) playing with cat toys to get out some energy. (FYI I adopted them in April and it is now May). Tips are happily accepted!!!