Guarding the cage?

[Arkeld]

Ok, so last night, I let my boys out to play, like always. Snow is more of an explorer, so he was out at the other end of the room, doing some nonsense. Crash, meanwhile, was near the cage. So I thought, what the hell, let´s pick him up and get him a treat from the kitchen (I´d done this before). He started squirming right away and I had to be pretty firm to stop him from escaping in the kitchen. So I get him back to the cage asap, and for the rest of the night, he was sulking, wouldn´t even take treats. I was worried for a while, thinking maybe I´d hurt him (though there´d been no squeaks).

Tonight then, he seemed to have recoverd, he came to me and took treats no prob. So again, I let them out of the cage, and only observed (other than preventing Snow from chewing stuff). As long as Snow was running around, Crash was nervous, skittish and any movement by myself would startle him. After a while, Snow came back to the cage and there was a complete change in Crash. With Snow back in or near the cage, he started exploring himself, climbed on me and into my clothes etc.

So I came to the conclusion that the boys have worked out a rotation: One goes exploring while he other guards the cage, then they switch. And the reason why Crash was so angry with me, was that I took him away, leaving the cage unguarded.

Does that make any sense? Have you experienced similar behaviour?

 

[jorats]

Some rats will guard the cage but that's mostly the alphas, being territorial. In fact, some alphas will even prevent rats from coming out of the cage. But I suspect in this case, Crash is a nervous boy but feels very confident when his buddy Snow is around. When Snow came back, he basically told Crash that all is well and safe in that area.