my rat is bitting me

Question
QUESTION: hi my name is christopher i am 15 years old this is my first pet rat that i bought from a petstore he is a feeder rat i am asking a question conserning my pet rat is biting me there not really bits but when i put my hand in to the cage he comes to investigate it when he gets close he extends his neck and opens his mouth as wide as he can really slowly then he will slowly try to put his teeth around my finger he is not agressive when he does that and afterwords he seems really playful but yesterday i was feeding him and as he was eating i was petting him as i ussually do but then he turned arround and bit me and drew blood i would really appreciat an answer as soon as you can thanks

Christohper

ANSWER: The aggressive bite seems as if he was being territorial.. the others may just be 'testing' the waters, so to speak. "Test" bites - or the playful bites that sometimes get too hard - are easy enough to work with. Next time he bites down on you and you've reached that "this might be too hard" stage - just yelp. One sharp, quick "OUCH!" will work. He'll probably immediately startle, at which point you can reward him with a pat and go back to what you were doing. Next time he does it - yelp again. Eventually he'll get the point that you make that loud, scary noise when he bites. He'll quit doing it pretty quick.

Alternatively, if he doesn't quit, when he bites put him back in his cage - playtime over. Once you've gone about your day and done other things, get him back out. Rats enjoy being out, and he'll learn that when he bites he goes back in his cage. Don't use the cage as punishment - it isn't a time out, don't scold him, yell at him or smack him - he won't understand that. But a simple putting him back to bed trick may work.

As far as the aggressive/territorial bite that he did - has he done it since or done it before? There are a ton of factors involved, so I'd be interested to know surrounding elements before I were to tell you how to handle that.

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QUESTION: thank you very much for that informative answer. to fallow up that answer he hase never done it before but i really enjoy playing with him and eny information of pet rats would be ever so helpful expecially if i could find a complete web page on what rats could eat
when my rat tries to bit me he seems more submisive than tirratorrial then he sees playful now im not sure on his age but i got him december 11 and the owner of the store said that he would just old enought to seperate from his mother so maybe it would be his age also would he be to young or old to introduce a new rat? thanks for the info it will surelly come in handy.

Answer
If you're going to introduce a new rat; do it now - and get a newly weaned baby boy, instead of an adult, you'll have the best response.

Here's a link for you to check out:

http://www.ratbehavior.org/rats.html

That has a lot of different information and may help with a lot of your questions.