Introducing two 8 week male rats to an older male

Question
Hello,
A few months ago one of my rats died due to an illness that was seen by a vet. He had a brother(Mowgli) who was alone so a few weeks ago i thought i would get him some friends. I had read that introducing younger males to an older male would be easier, Mowgli is about a year and five months, and the little ones are now about 8 weeks. So today i thought i would introduce them on nuetral ground for a few minutes. Mowgli was always the dominant one, so i expected him to pin them down and rough house them a bit. But he didn't he wanted nothing to do with them, he hid under the blankets for a minute then came out and pretty much ignored them. So i figured that was enough for a while, then about a half hour ago i introduced them again, but this time on a towell in the bath tub with a box and other little things to hide in. This time Mowgli would walk right through them, he still didn't seem to want anything to do with them but i was wondering what he was doing by literally walking through them and like pushing under them to get through.

Answer

Honestly, its a good thing he did not attack the babies at all.  Really. I expected him to go after them and attack them. The proper way to  introduce other rats is to allow them to be by each other  side by  side for a while in cages, at least for a week but this is ONLY after proper quarantine.  Once quarantine is over, the new rats should reside in a cage next to the existing rats cage so they can get used to each others smells. Its more or less for the benefit of the existing older rat rather than the younger ones since they seem game to most anything.


Check out sandsycrittercity.com and read up on quarantine too so you will know what  to do next time.  meantime, let them get used to each other they way I said, allowing them in each others cages etc...but it sounds like it may go OK since he isnt attacking the pups.