twitching of the head

Question
Hi.

Not sure what's happening. I have a baby rat, I'd say 1 or 2 months old, and he's on his own in his cage. Sometimes he'll sit still then all of a sudden twitch his head side ways 2 of 3 times then bolt off running like mad around the cage and jumping around. Then he'll stop and seem like he's hiding.

I was thinking it maybe bordom or just excitement of being in a new cage in a new environment. I've only had him for 3 days.

Not sure what's happening?

thanks :)

Answer

Right now I have three baby rats, around 5 weeks old, and they do all of that stuff.  Twitch, jump, run (they hardly ever walk!) they are fast and furious. Baby rats do what some rat lovers refer to as "popcorning" which is when they jump up in the air like popcorn that is popping. Its pretty funny to see.  

Also, rats of all ages sometimes will sit in one spot and sway their head back and forth, swinging it slowly. This often sends people to me worried something is wrong such as they are blind or even have brain damage for some reason.  This is really common too and it is simply the rat trying to calculate the distant of an ojbect. It is called motion parallax, in which the rat moves his head to gain different viewpoints. It occurs more in red or pink eyed rats but dark eyed rats do it sometimes too.  You can read about it on my website. I even have links to videos of other rats doing it.

I dont think your talking about head swaing though, but are describing the actions of a baby rat being....a baby rat! They float, fly, glide, climb the cage as if they had the abilities of "Spider man" himself.