Stashing Food in wrong places

Question
Hello.  Our 2 female rats are about 1 year old.  They each have their own, what we call, "poopy corner" in their cage.  One of our rats stashes extra food in her poopy corner...that is so gross!  We don't actually ever see her eating it from there though.  Sometimes it's still there in the morning and other times not.  I notice mostly lab blocks or hard pasta are dragged there (not her favorite foods).  But other times, she puts eggs or other yummy food there when she has had enough at the moment.  I wonder if she considers the lab blocks to be like trash so she puts them with her poop...or is she saving it there for later (ewww!).  If the latter, isn't that unsanitary and could she get sick (she hasn't been sick yet tho).  Thanks in advance for your advice.

Answer
Nope, its ok, dont worry.  As gross as this sounds, animals eat their own stool. How about that for nasty?  LOL  It is called "Coprophagia" and believe it or not, it is actually GOOD for them to eat their own feces at certain times and should not be stopped. Not that your rat is doing this, however, but just so you dont worry about the rat falling ill if his food touches the feces.
Here are some links about it if you feel like reading up on it. I know its nasty but you can look at it as learning something new today that you never knew, nasty or not, new information added to the brain is great no matter the topic!


http://www.lumrix.net/health/Coprophagia.html

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Coprophagia