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I have always been a noah's ark kind of person until now when i am down to two cats in my apartment. Back then I had a farm so there was room for lots of critters. I believe scent plays the most important role in getting animlas to accept each other as part of the clan. If it smells like the place it must belong here. So I would always make sure the scent of the place had a cchance to work its way onto the new critter whether it be a bunny, a rat, a goat or a horse.

Then I would introduce the mildest, most unassuming creature to the newbie first. Give them time to get acquainted and become comfortable. Then I would one by one bring others in by pecking order going from least aggresive and territorial to the defined leaders of the pack. I would let them see me attending to the new animal so they also knew I had an interest in it's welfare. By the time I got to the leaders, the newbie would already have friends and more importantly would be smelling more and more like it lived here.

In the case of the more pushy in your face animals, I would start introductions with a barrier between them and the newbie to avoid lightening quick tragedies. After the initial pecking order brouhaha was settled down, if I was sure there would be no overt hostilities or fatalities for that matter, I would remove the barrier. Always I stayed nearby to step in and intervene if things got too rough.

Generally this worked very well. I did have a few hairy incidences where things got out of hand like when the small aggressive pony chased the large 1200 lb muscular and large boned but spineless thoroughbred around the pasture and the thoroughbred basically ran straight for me mentally screaming"MOM!". Only a quick scramble onto a nearby fence saved me from having a lapful of thoroughbred!

By using a lot of patience and supervision you can usually get your odd pets to completely accept each other. I have successfully had my cats accept my rabbits, ducks, chickens and even a pet rat.

Learn more about this author, Cindy Beck.
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