The Pecking Order As with all social animals (including humans!), rats have developed an intricate social structure to allow their colonies to operate peacefully and affectively. This structure is called the "Pecking Order". The dictionary defines the pecking order as "a hierarchy of social dominance or prestige". What this basically means is, that when you put any where from two or more rats together, the first thing they will need to do is establish their pecking order to organize their colony. Picture the pecking order as a ladder. The most dominant rat, called the alpha, will take their place at the top rung. Then the second most dominant rat, called the beta, would be on the rung second from the top, and so on, until you get to the least dominant rat, called the omega, who would take their place at the very bottom rung. Rats obtain these positions within the colony's pecking order by having dominance fights. The strongest rat wins. Because of this, if you have a colony of rats filled with various ages, it will be a rat who is in their prime, as an adult, who will take up the position as the alpha. When rats are adults they are at their strongest and can more easily win the fights for dominance. Youngsters are never strong enough to be alphas unless they are in with only other youngsters, and the same goes for the elderly. Males are also usually always the alpha to females. So if you plunk a male in with a group of females, he will most likely become the alpha of the group, again because he is stronger. The strongest rat is always the alpha. Males are stronger than females, and adult rats are stronger then youngsters and the elderly. For example, say you have an adult omega who is nothing but picked on in their current colony with other adults. If you remove him and put him into a new colony with only youngsters, he will automatically become the alpha due to his age and strength, even though he was an omega in his previous colony. This is why youngsters are easier to introduce to adult rats. Alpha's are usually not threatened by them, and youngsters are usually quick to take the submissive role. Rat colonies tend to always have some dominance fighting going on mixed in with their usual play fighting. This is completely normal since the pecking order is always shifting as members grow older. However an established colony will generally be at peace with itself. Introduce a new rat into the mix and this peace will be gone. A series of constant dominance fights will begin to unfold. Usually the alpha will be the first one to beat up on the new rat, to show them where there place is. Then the beta will fight for dominance with the new rat, and so on. The new rat must test his strength with each member of the colony until he finds a rat that he can beat. If he can't, then he becomes the new omega of the colony. The length of time it takes a colony of rats to work out their pecking order when a new rat is introduced varies. It could take as little as a few seconds to as long as many months depending on the rats involved. Submissive rats will more quickly find their place, but if you have two or more rats who are determined to be alpha, it can cause a lot of conflict until they work it out. However you must let them work it out so that the colony can find peace once again. The exception we make to this rule is with elderly rats. We don't tolerate elderly rats getting picked on, and we will separate them out more quickly than others. We do not like to let them go through the stress of the dominance game because they are more fragile and stress much more easily. (The only situation with which this might happen, though, would be if you were trying to introduce an elderly rat to an established adult colony.) Dominance fighting is a very normal part of the process when introducing new rats. Again it is so they can establish their pecking order. You need to let them go through this even if the new rat seems to be getting picked on for weeks. This is okay because dominance fighting is mostly for show and causes no injury. However, if you see the slightest sign that a fight is turning serious, you need to pull that new rat out of there right away. Look to "Ratty Language and Behavior" in this Guidebook to see what the signs of rat anger are. If any of your rats are showing these signs of anger towards your new rat, it means they are out for blood, and wounds can happen quick and be quite serious. Male rats can kill a new intruding rat as quick as lightning. That is why it is so vital to follow the proper introduction process when introducing new rats. See "Introducing New Rats to Your Colony" within this Guidebook to learn what that process is.