Runs herself silly??

[September555]

Hey Everyone, long time no lurk for me. Hope all is well. I have a smaller rat.... I got her first part of november as a baby, so fairly young. Well.....I asked before on the board once that she had spot on her foot that I was worried could be bumble foot etc...and it wasnt. Watched it and it went away and has come back several times. Well...a few weeks ago, I decided to touch it...really touch it and see if i could get some to come off, if there was blood etc. I was horrified when I touched it and it just fell off into my hands.....then smelt something funny....and looked closely....and it was POOP. Yes, I said POOP! So here is what I found out is happening.

Both my rats sleep all day. Around 10pm at night.....Lilly (the one I spoke of above) gets up and goes down in her wheel and runs like a mad insane crazy lunitic. I am talking runs so fast that sometimes she falls head over heals (only happened 4 times that I seen, funny yet not). I mean she runs so fast...that when she comes out of the wheel, she flies out, and runs up the ramps and the wheel spins endlessly on it's own! She is crazy. She does this for hours and hours and hours. She will do this non stop, literally from 10-11 pm until 5-6 in the morning. What I found out is, she will poop while doing this, and the poop will get mashed onto the wire of the wheel and into the bottoms of her foot and make it look like something is horribly wrong with her foot! Some days I spend 30 minutes picking and wiping the poop out of the wire (ewww) because she has smashed so many poopies in it!

I also noticed that the bottoms of her back feet particularry are caloused from running in it so much.

A) is it normal for her to want to run like mad like this for hours and hours....good grief the energy she has! (and I get them both out for 1-2 hours a night) so it isn't like she never gets out.

B) is it healthy on her to run like that constantly? I guess if it bothered her she wouldnt do it. I dont want to take the wheel out, she loves it so much and would be devistated.

I do check her feet regularly to make sure there is nothing wrong with them like she got a toe caught or any open sores etc.

I just wondered what everyone thought about this. If that was a treadmill and she was human, she would of lost 100 lbs since november! :giggle: I will try and get a vid of her doing this and post it. I am not sure anyone will believe it unless others ratties do the same! I cant find the spell check, so excuse the spelling mistakes.

Paula

 

[lilspaz68]

I am sure some of us have seen this insane energy before with the flip out and run bouncing through the cage :laugh4:

The completely manic running pops up every once in a while and you got ONE. :wink2:

She will be happier and healthier as a runner, and should develop a lovely wheelie tail curled over her back.

They will manic run up to about 8 months then slow down a bit as young adults...the insane energy (Carina comes to mind, and a few others) will level out a teeny bit later on.

How old is your little girl now?

 

[September555]

Hey Lil...not sure her exact age....I had lost a rat and had a very sad rat (Bailey) alone so I rushed out and got her a compainion from a pet store that is not a big chain. They guessed Lily at about 3 months and that was beginning of November. So she is approx 6-7 months old. She is a dumbo

Wheelie tail, haha I noticed she does carry her tail quit high and she walks with her back legs outwards a bit. My concern is just the roughness of her feet. She does this for 8-9 hours a night. I work overnights during the week and am home on weekends, I will see if i can get a short video of her doing this Fri or Sat night and post it...it's the craziest thing.

 

[jorats]

Hi Paula!!
I'm pretty sure your Lily was much younger than 3 months when you got her. I'm guessing your little girl is just super energetic and loves to run. I've got some girls that run so fast on the wheel, they barely touch the wheel, it looks like they are doing this huge jumps in it instead of running.

How are the two getting along now?

 

[lilratsy43]

What about getting her a solid wheel? Since she runs soo much, it maybe easier on her feets and it will definately be easier for you to clean! Just a thought...(ps I don't think there is anything wrong with wire wheels, I just wonder if a solid one would be better in this situation)

Like this: http://samuelblog.info/wp-content/plugi ... pinner.jpg

 

[September555]

Jo...I am sure you are right..and you did see pics of her when I first got her when we were talking about it. It is funny you say that too..it does look like long leaps instead of running cant even see her feet touch the wheel. Lilrat...I didnt know they made those big enough for rats...granted she is only a small rat not large I still wanted her to have enough room...I will have to look into that for sure. Thanks...I do worry about her feet getting so rough, and those wires can catch her toes and tail easily too...that worries me to death. Lilspaz...you are right about tail curl..I didnt realize how much until last night when I got her out and thought about what you said...and looked..and sure enough, it does curl.

Anyways...sound like from all of you this is pretty normal, so I wont fret...but here is a few videos anyways.......

This one is of her tail curl...its shakey and at the end she zips off way to fast for me...but gives you the idea:


I was filming her running hard in wheel, I had put them both away for the night, and forgot I had opened my bedroom door, so the cat came in and interupted my video of it..so sorry for the kitten interuptions but video was good of her in wheel and you can see how crazy she gets:


Just her running hard and me being funny with Bailey (older girl)


Lastly...if you are bored and wanna see her being cute popping over to the door and peeking out. I was cleaning out her cage, she gets up in the cage and goes for a "mild jog" in her wheel in the middle of me cleanng, it was just cute how she would pop out and say hi:



Thanks again and will post some cute pics in the into page in a few here.

Paula