acting crazy

[fireworks]

Well, one of the boys, Remi, was acting insane yesterday. He was bouncing off the walls, jumping in the air, and running up and down the FN ramps. When I type it it doesn't sound that bad - but it seriously sounded like a thunderstorm, with all the metal he was hitting. I went to the guidebook on rattyrat.com and found the behavior guide, which said this:

Hopping
As rats play and become excited, they will some times hop straight up in the air, bounce around, and run back and forth.

That kind of sounds like what Remi was doing. But it was just so loud...
And the thing is, Romeo was just sitting in the igloo looking a bit scared, not exactly playing with Remi.

I just wanted to get a few other opinions on this.
Thanks in advance.

 

[user 78]

It definitely sounds like something excited him. Not exactly anything to worry about. The behavior they're describing is called popcorning, which rats do when they're excited and happy - usually when they're playing. If you watch them doing it, it really does remind you of popcorn popping. As for Romeo looking a little freaked, all that noise and energy would startle anyone, especially if they came up out of a nap to all of that going on.

Rats don't always play together, regardless of one wanting to play or being excited. My youngest is still chock full of energy and she'll just start running laps up and down the ramps for no real reason than she wants to, much to my older girls' dismay. They just stay out of Lil's way and hope she doesn't try and include them.

 

[fireworks]

Okay, good, thanks!
I've heard of guinea pigs popcorning but I didn't know rats did it too.
I was kind of worried - now not so much. Thank you!!

 

[jorats]

I've experienced a couple of times when a rat actually got spooked and did a full force run through the cage. It was loud and continual. If that's what you experienced, it might have been a panic attack. Did another pet walk by the cage or a new sound or something?
If it is popcorning, that's just playing, but they usually engage the other rat during their play and it's not continual, it's popcorn, stop, popcorn, stop and so on.