Rat tail carriage..?

[Seneschal]

Hi...I'm fairly new to owning rats, and have noticed some odd behavior in one of my younger (probably three-four month old, not entirely sure) females...she's carrying her tail strangely. The others just kinda...casually carry it, but she's been running around with her tail arched up and over her back.

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Kinda like that..! Does anyone know why she's carrying it like that? I haven't observed any other abnormal behavior. O_o Does she just...like to hold her tail weird, and I'm worrying over nothing? It could be that she's excited, I did just introduce her into a nice, big, shiny new cage with lotsa toys, and she's been running around climbing the walls and running up and down the levels...could that be it?

[frankykeno]

That's just an excited tail posture, perhaps a bit of fear of the new stuff with it's new smells but nothing to worry about. She'll soon sniff, nibble and figure it all out and drop her tail back to it's normal position. Does she have cage buddies of the same gender in the new cage with her?

[Seneschal]

Ohh!! Well, that makes sense, and it's reassuring...I was worried that something was wrong! Thanks for telling me!

Yep, she has several female cage buddies...there're five of them in there, and it's a HUGE cage. It's as tall as my hips and 3' wide and 18'' deep or so. There're three levels, and these nice little ramps...XD and so naturally all of the rats simply MUST use the bars of the cage to climb to the levels!! One of them keeps carrying carrots up and down from the levels, and they're actually using the little wheel I have in there. I got a really big cage so that they wouldn't be cramped, even when everybody's adult size.

They do have some familiar cage items in there so they should feel safer...the wheel is the same, and the little ball cat toys with jingly bells in the middle.

[Michelle.C]

It could be what rat hobbyist refer to as "wheelie tail". It's from constantly running on a rodent wheel . They curve/curl their tail to keep it out of the way.

As far as I know, there's no health risk or problems that could occur from wheelie tail.

Theres only one health risk I can think of that can be caused by a rodent wheel. If the wheel is too small, they'll arch their backs and it can cause back pains and an unnatural arch in their back to occur.

Hope that helps

[littleindiangirl]

Yup, we have a wheelie tail girl. She ran on a wheel her whole life, and it she now corkscrews her tail whenever she walks around. Its so funny

[frankykeno]

Sometimes they can get injured from the open wheel type, the closed wheels are safer. Don't laugh, I actually had a female rat that could NOT for the life of her figure out how to operate a rat wheel. She'd stand beside it, fully upright spinning it madly with her front paws then try to hop in the still spinning wheel, which would then promptly slow and stop. Out she'd get again, try to spin it harder, then add in her one hind foot to help the effort. Occasionally the wheel spun hard enough to knock her on her rat butt. Poor thing, she never did figure out to actually run in the wheel to make it go around and around. I think the other rats laughed at her.

For those of you that remember my favorite female rat, HoneyChild, that was her LOL. A great rat, a great breeder but not the smartest rat in the wheel if you know what I mean.

[Seneschal]

Thanks for all the responses...it certainly sounds like she has a wheelie tail; she's one of the two who do use the wheel...the other three don't bother with it, but she and her little black friend love it, which is why I put it in there. The others just kind of ignore it. I have been watching them to make sure nothing happens, but have seen no improper use of the wheel, and it's large enough for an adult rat to use.

XDD HoneyChild sounds adorable!!! Must have been so cute to watch!

[frankykeno]

HC was a great rat, she passed a couple of weeks ago at almost 3 years of age. She was a very funny young rat and grew into a great adult, not a terribly smart one but friendly as all get out and a super good momma to her feeder litters.

[Michelle.C]

You're right! Closed wheels are much, much safer. The wheels with the bars(open wheels) can be dangerous. I've heard of them slipping their foot in between the bars of the wheel while it's moving and breaking their foot.

Sorry to hear about your loss . It sounds like she was a real cutie.

[frankykeno]

Sorry to hear about your loss . It sounds like she was a real cutie.

She was a really nice rat, thank you. She did live a quite long life for a pet store rat and had a very productive and happy life so, though we do miss the old granny rat, we're glad she's no longer old and infirm.

Our rats all love messing with empty toilet paper tubes or tubes from paper towels and one of the more popular "toys" is just thin strips of old phone book pages. They just love that stuff...they'll spend hours hauling it around, building nests, stealing it from each other. Great busy work for them and heck it uses up the old phone books! It does get nasty when they pee on it so I wouldn't use it as real bedding, just a handful tossed in occasionally.