# Can Ruby Eyed Rats have bad eyesight?



## xStatic (Dec 16, 2012)

I noticed my buff hooded girl have bee swaying back and forth just a little bit. She had very dark ruby eyes and I never thought that she might have poor eyesight. I know rats with pink or light red eyes can have poor eyesight.

Can she not see well or is she swaying for some other reason?


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## ahrat (Aug 12, 2013)

Normally, black eyed have the best eye sight, then ruby have some seeing problems, and pink eyes are the hardest seeing. The eye sight can be worse if exposed to a lot of bright light and such.


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## xStatic (Dec 16, 2012)

Okay, my room isn't very bright or anything, but she does do it every once in a while. She doesn't sway a whole bunch, just a little bit. I think she mainly does it when she's sleepy. 

I've also noticed she tends to sleep with her eyes at least partially open most of the time and I was wondering if it was because her vision was poor as well.


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## ksaxton (Apr 20, 2014)

I have a pink eyed girl, and I notice too that her vision doesn't seem to be as good as her black eyed friend. When I make sounds to call her or offer snacks, if I'm not right in front of her she has trouble figuring out where I am. She's also hesitant to climb out of the cage and into my hand, her friend will climb without hesitation but she will start to climb but then hesitate and shrink back into the cage. I wondered if maybe because she can't see as well she's a little more wary of whether or not the hand is stable enough 


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## Willieboo (Oct 22, 2012)

I'd heard that black eyes tend to be the best, and pink eyes tend to be the worst (referring to the eyesight). Some time ago on this site I was told that ruby eyes are somewhere in the middle but tend to lean toward better sight.
However, that's not the case for my ruby-eyed fawn; she's about as close to blind as one could probably get without actually being blind. 
As for the swaying, your rat's doing this to try to get a better glimpse at you or whatever's around. If they're swaying more, I was told it might mean your rat has a harder time identifying things in their perimeter so they spend a little extra time clarifying...however, as I was made to believe, most rats sway because their eyesight is generally not well (even at their best) and they identify shifts in light better than crisp shapes, so it seems.
Anyway, having worse eyesight won't hurt your rat any. Some owners tend to want to coddle rats who have less developed eyesight for the fear that they'll get hurt, but they're like kids in the sense that trial and error is how they become familiar with their environments (and they're pretty resilient, not to mention they have their sense of smell and hearing to help them as well). My ruby-eyed runs into walls and falls off of platforms in her cage (especially when I take the pans out to clean) and is no worse for the wear. I used to be very tender with and worried about her, but now...I just let her build a map of her surroundings through trials and she works it out quite quickly.


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## aimleigh (Feb 7, 2014)

my little pink-eyed friend seems to sway a little so I think it comes down to him having poor eyesight. my little buddy nearly fell off the bed the other day :-/


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