New Rats meeting Old Rats!

Question
I bought my two dumbo's Puddle and Alaska about 4 weeks ago. Yesterday I bought two fancy rats called Taylor and Lloyd. I was wondering what the likelihood of these 4 being able to be out of their cages together. I don't want them to be in the same cage living with each other, but I would like it if they could all be out at the same time. I know that introducing rats to live with each other can be time consuming and tricky so I was wondering what the chances of just playtime together? Thanks. Amy

Answer
Hi Amy

My first question...are the rats all the same sex?

Second of all, the new rats should be in strict quarantine for the next 3 weeks to prevent the spread of deadly viruses such as SDA and SENDAI.  The quarantine should be in a separate airspace.  You may or may not know this so ignore me if you already are aware of this. Check out the link for info if needed:

http://www.freewebs.com/crittercity/thequarantinepage.htm

Also, if they are young enough or laid back enough, introductions are often very simple, regardless of sex.
This is how I would do it:
Once quarantine is up, bring them into the room where the Dumbo rats are and set the cage next to their cage, but not so close that a tail may drop down into the other rat cage. I once had a very aggressive male and he was too close to the other cage where 4 males lived, above his cage. One of the males long tails hung down into Kirby, the aggressive males cage, and he degloved the poor rat. Blood EVERYWHERE! This was just something I never thought about...and I hate learning from my mistakes since its at the expense of the poor rat!  :-(

Anyhow, allow the new rats cage to sit next to the existing rats cage and during play time for the first few days, take turns, first the dumbos come out to play, and after that, the fancy rats come out. They will go to the other rats cage right away and spend most of their time sniffing the entire area that the other rats were in. This makes them aware of each other right off. After about a week of this, you can hold one of the rats to the other rats and let them sniff each other....take turns doing this for a few days. Finally on the big day, let them come out all at once. They should meet in a neutral area that neither mischief can claim as their own territory.  There will be alot of sniffing and maybe chasing and wrestling but this is very very normal and should be expected. It makes us nervous unless we understand rat behavior and understand that all of this so called "rough housing" is actually a way for the rats to get to know about each other.Rats can tell the age and sex of another rat just by smelling their urine, and if you have males, expect alot of urine marking at first too.
A certain "contest" comes to mind if you get my drift.  LOL
Anyhow, as long as you remain calm during their first few meetings out of the cage, they should do fine if it is done slowly. I know some people that just plop new rats with existing rats in the cage and let the deal with it, thinking "no blood, no foul" and usually it works out just fine...and I have seen rats come in to the clinic with huge gashes that required stitches from taking that approach too...so I say its just luck if you do it the other way, but thats just my opinion.

Hope this helps!