Female Rats bite each other

Question
QUESTION: I have 2 female rats that I have had for almost a year. They will be 1 year old in January. They appear to love one another and do normal rituals that rats often do such playing, sleeping together, cuddling and grooming one another.They are well socialized and have never displayed any form of aggression towards me or my family. However, randomly within the last few weeks, I have noticed that one of my rats appears to have black dried blood on her neck. It almost appears to look like little fleas, but when I washed them off I could see that it was indeed blood that looks to be caused from biting. I have noticed that my rat who is being bitten seems a bit more docile and submissive than my other. I really do not know what to do, since they appear to love one another aside from this intense biting so I am heartbroken to have to separate them.

ANSWER: Have you ever seen them bite each other?

Do they seem to itch and scratch more than usual?

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QUESTION: I do see them bite each other, but it appears to be "grooming biting". They do take turns lightly biting each other and light squeaks are heard, but nothing major. I don't know if maybe my one rat has gotten carried away! I am confused because I have only spotted this dried blood recently and there is quite a bit. I am also wondering if maybe it is caused from the nails being too long. I have a really hard time clipping the nails of the more dominant rat. Shes gets really upset and makes noises when I try to hold her down, however she doesn't try to bite me. (The rat who has the dried blood has no problem with me clipping her nails.)

ANSWER: If the one rat protests, does the more dominating rat stop? Thats the key. If she stops, thats a good sign, but if she persists, thats another story. I hate to see you separate them too since this just adds stress to both rats and could actually cause illness from being depressed. When they stress, this causes the immune system to weaken and they are more open to infection than usual. Sometimes they power groom each other but you would see more loss of fur in areas of power grooming rather than bites.  I think what your seeing is fairly common and as long as the alpha rat stops during protest, its more or less a bit of being over zealous.  I would apply neosporin to the areas to prevent infection although it will be licked off eventually (it wont hurt them so dont worry) but thats really all you can do. Rats dont usually understand any sort of punishment and yes, as funny as it sounds, people write to me  saying they put their rat in a "BAD RAT CAGE" and some have even bitten their rats back, now thats absurd!  Spraying with a bottle of water is also a bit cruel although I do suggest it if there is a brutal fight rather than reaching in and pulling two angry rats apart, which is suicide to your own flesh.  Are they bored, maybe? Enough time out of the cage? Enough to do during time out?  Things to kick around in the cage if they get bored while waiting for you to entertain their spoiled furrbutts?

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QUESTION: Thank you for answering my questions Sandra! The thing is that I do not notice any protesting occurring. I would assume that the protest would be something that would be distinguishable?? I do hear light squeaks, however both of them squeak during "grooming time". I do not hear anything offensive. Their heavy grooming session is usually a nighttime routine so sometimes, I am in bed when this occurs.  Do you think that my submissive rat isn't bothered my other dominant rat? I do not spy any  defense signals such as puffing of hair. Maybe I should consider new toys. I will feel so badly if this my fault due to their boredom of my toys!!! I will try some of your suggestions. I hope that this doesn't persist as I know how much they love each other. Even though I have read books and magazines on rats and consider myself "rat educated", Lulu and Jane are my first rats, so I am still learning!

Answer
Thats ok, we learn new things every day. I just learned not long ago that mycoplasmosis also causes arthritis and only recently discovered that one reason our rats tend to have alot of degenerative changes after they are 2 years old is because their normal life span is around 6 to 12 months (in the wild) so rats bodies are only built to "hold together" till they are around 24 months and a wild rat alive that long is a lucky rat for sure.  Their bodies start to show degenerative changes at 24 months old, from hind leg paralysis from compression on the spinal cord and other arthritic changes. Now I knew about these changes and just linked them with old age but didnt really realize it was due to the fact their skeletal system is "outdated"  almost like when humans age.

So....that said, now you learned something new too, if you didnt know this already, and so just one more example of how we can never learn enough. I consider myself to know alot about rats too, and to be honest, the word "expert" is a bit much to have my name fall under. The point is, at least we are taking the time to learn and to be hungry for information to make our rats lives better. That is what it is all about.

That said, I wouldn't feel guilty about it if they are bored. Rats are super intelligent as you have found I am sure, so they do get bored easy no matter if we  stood on our heads and spit nuts out for them. Seriously. My boy, Santana, gets bored after roaming around the room for an hour and goes into his cage on his own, has a few things to eat and gets in his little ball to sleep (again) he gets bored with me fast if I dont have any treats for him. User!  lol !

One thing you said make me realize that part of this is involving their time awake, since they are nocturnal for the most part. They are probably finding things to do while you sleep and grooming each other is one of them. It seems this is troubling you more than the girls so I would not be too concerned about it as long as nothing is hostile, its pretty common to see this.