Head sway/ tilt

Question
I have just gotten a young female rat about 2 1/2 months old (not from a pet
store)
and for the most part she seems fine healthy and normal but when she is in
her cage calming down from playing aorund her cage she sorta sways her
head back and forth or sometimes sways it just to one side? is this a possible
ear infection, tumor or something else?
thank you for your time,
Jessica

Answer
Hello Jessica!


Guess what?

No tumor, no ear infection, nothing bad to worry about!!  

That adorable head swaying your little rat is doing is totally normal!  I betcha she has red or pink eyes, right? Even if not, it doesnt matter....whats have a pretty lousy pair of peepers and if they were human they would be legally blind!  Red and pink eyed rats eyes are even a bit worse than the dark eyed rats. ALL RATS have poor depth perception and have trouble judging distance. They sway their head back and forth to focus and judge the distance from their position to an object in the distance, often doing this before making a jump or perhaps if they hear a voice or see a movement in the distance and they are trying to focus in on it, they start to sway back and forth. Its adorable as heck when they do that, too!

It is called parallax motion and it is used to determine relative and absolute distance in objects.

Just for kicks, check out this video from U TUBE of an adorable rat doing the head sway (with the music of QUEEN playing in the background! LOL!!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMTieT0z8Ts&feature=related


To better explain it, motion parallax is simply a depth cue that results from the way the rat moves, which in this case, swaying his head from side to side.  As the rat moves, objects that are closer to the animal will move farther across his field of view than do objects that are in the distance. This in turn tells the rat how far an object is in the distance. Sometimes a rat will jump a great distance, but how often to they accurately hit their mark and fall instead? I would say that without the rat using motion parallax, he will miss his target which is why I do not suggest allowing any rat to remain on high tables or counters unattended. They just dont realize how high they are and I cant tell you how many accidents I have seen over the years when a rat is allowed to play on someones table or kitchen counter top etc...

Well long story short, your little cutie is just fine.

Hope this helps and let me know if you check out the video on U tube!!