| By age ten months, Widget had become a terror. Time outside the cage followed the same pattern: Widget would immediately chase the other two on top of the cage. Widget then had free run of the floor and he'd race from one end of the room to the other. The other two rats stayed way up high. Widget, with his head tilt, wasn't as good a climber as they were so they were usually safe up there. |
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Once, Snip found a more novel spot to hide during one of Widget's rampages: the top of the water bottle. |
A few days after this picture, the whole situation disintegrated. Widget slashed an inch long wound on Cricket's scrotum, ouch. While Cricket was recovering in a smaller cage, Widget attacked Snip and bit him twice on the leg. In self-defense, Snip bit Widget on the face, narrowly missing his eye.
That was the last straw. I separated Widget permanently from the other two and placed him in his own cage. Peace returned. The other two rats got along well. Snip tended to be dominant but he and Cricket never fought seriously, and they got to run around freely again without Widget's constant harassment.
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