swaying rat

Question
Hi.
I just got a pet rat today and when i put him in his cage he sits in the corner and sways his head and shoulders. I've never seen a rat do this. I have had pet rats before (2 females) and I'm wondering if maybe there's something wrong. I've given him top of the range food and water, good bedding and kept him n a quiet place so that he can settle in. Why is he swaying?

Answer
I bet he has red or pink eyes, right?

Nothing is wrong with your rat! What is is doing is simply called "head swaying"

He is trying to focus and get a good judge on the objects he sees in the distance. This is called motion parallax and it is used for relative and absolute distance judgments. In other words, most red or pink eyed rats have poor depth perception and the use of motion parallax (head swaying) helps to increase its perception of depth. ALL rats have lousy vision, this is no secret, and luckily they do not depend on their vision for accuracy and rather, they are more in tune with hearing and the sense of touch (thank you whiskers) so being "near legally blind" is no handicap for the rat.

Now, back to head swaying:
Bottom line is, this is very common, he is just fine, and it is pretty darn cute when they do this, too. He will probably always do it and you will find him doing it often when someone comes in the room or if he is attempting to jump from one object to the other. He needs to be able to judge how far the distance is between the two objects so he doesnt miss during the jump, which they sometimes do, which is another reason not to let rats on high objects that they may try to jump from.

Hope this helps!