# Stealing and Hoarding Food



## Staceface2345 (Feb 20, 2016)

I have rescued a neuter male rat. He has a very sweet temperament and is never aggressive to my four girls. Two of the girls however are really cruel to him. Introductions took a week and a half. Everyone can live in the same cage with little incident. Despite everyone living olay with each other my two older girls steal all of this food out of his food bowl and put it on the second level of their cage. I have 5 rats living in a double critter nation. Has anyone else had rats that steal food from each other despite the fact that everyone has adequate food?


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## mimsy (Jun 8, 2014)

It's pretty common for some rats to hoard food. things you can do-add more food bowls, scatter feed instead of in bowls. turn food into a more natural event and make them forage for it. You can use parrot or cat foraging balls and feeders or make your own. Putting a little food wrapped in paper somewhere, or an empty toilet roll, you can make a hole big enough for food to fall out of small tupperware containers, you can even attach the tupperware to the sides or tops of the cage so they have to climb and then reach for it, ect. If you use substrate, hide food in it.


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## Staceface2345 (Feb 20, 2016)

Thank you for your response. I have 3 food bowls and made two foraging toys to hide food and treats. The older girls are deliberately taking food from the bowl the neutered boy eats from. Its weird. Ill try adding some more toys and use the tupperware idea. Maybe that will stop the food bullying.


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## jlhummel (Oct 23, 2014)

My girls used to do this A LOT as well until I got one of these...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...aging wheel&qid=1456239680&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1

It's designed for pet birds but for my rats is serves several purposes. 

1.) It slows them down. Instead of sitting there obsessively eating the whole dish just because it's there (like we humans do when sitting in front of the TV with a bowl of popcorn) the rats seem to get full and then go do something else for a bit then come back.
2.) They have to work at getting the food out so they don't scoop up as much food as they can hold in their mouth and then go hide it somewhere anymore. Which also serves to leave food there for EVERYONE to enjoy.
3.) The other benefit of having to work at getting the food out is that it entertains them a bit.

Since I started using these I haven't wasted nearly as much food because there isn't a ton of food being hoarded in corners anymore.


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## Isamurat (Jul 27, 2012)

If that doesn't work I'd defintily try scatter feeding, you could also take the girl in question out for the first 10-15 mins of food going in to give her less time to monoploise it


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## Staceface2345 (Feb 20, 2016)

Thanks everyone for the great ideas. Ill definitely buy that food toy. It looks like a really cool edition to their cage. I tried feeding everyone with the oldest two out of the cage. They stole all of my poor Isaac's remaining food shortly after dinner time.  Either way I'll keep doing it and maybe over time theyll stop.


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## Kelsbels (Aug 12, 2015)

One of mine has been hoarding too XD. Whenever new food is in the cage she starts grabbing them and running place to place putting food everywhere she goes, and quite a few go in their litter boxes *sigh*.

I'm also going to borrow some advice here


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## Gribouilli (Dec 25, 2015)

My rats started stashing their food after I got another rat (the other rat is not even in the same cage). Anyway, I recently put my rats on a diet and so started feeding them only ONCE a day at the same time (I weigh their Oxbow). Since I started doing that, they stopped hoarding and stashing their food. Anyway, try to feed them only once a day and at the same time every day, it might work with your rats too. Now my rats know how much they get and at what time each day, and so stop worrying about not having enough!?


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## raindear (Mar 3, 2015)

I found that with Harlan Teklad blocks I could use a particular suet feeder that has 1" x 1/2" wire spacing on all six sides as a hopper. With Oxbow I found a wire pencil holder at Target with 1/2" x 1/2" spacing all around it. I fill both these hoppers with the appropriate blocks and hang them on the side of the cage so the bottoms are 2-3 inches off the floor. I have not had any hoarding since doing this. You might want to use more than one hopper in different places in your situation.


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## Gribouilli (Dec 25, 2015)

raindear said:


> I found that with Harlan Teklad blocks I could use a particular suet feeder that has 1" x 1/2" wire spacing on all six sides as a hopper. With Oxbow I found a wire pencil holder at Target with 1/2" x 1/2" spacing all around it. I fill both these hoppers with the appropriate blocks and hang them on the side of the cage so the bottoms are 2-3 inches off the floor. I have not had any hoarding since doing this. You might want to use more than one hopper in different places in your situation.


Interesting the pencil holder method. Don't they steal the pellets from above though?


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## BlackoutCat (Jan 23, 2016)

I'm going to have to try some of these methods! My tiniest boy Apollo is a food thief and hoarder, he'll snatch the pellet right out of his brothers' mouths to add to his caches, they just wander back to the dish and grab a new pellet. Little brat makes four or so immediate caches and then slowly condenses them into the newest favourite hammock (usually the lower section of a honeycomb hammock). I upturned a 4L ice cream tub over the dish recently (ready made stash?) but I'm not sure if it's working or not as it's only been a few days.


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## raindear (Mar 3, 2015)

They may, but after climbing up to get them, they don't take many and I haven't found any stored in the cage. If I had found a hoard, I would figure a way to cover the pencil holder. At this time it is working really well.


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## Gribouilli (Dec 25, 2015)

raindear said:


> They may, but after climbing up to get them, they don't take many and I haven't found any stored in the cage. If I had found a hoard, I would figure a way to cover the pencil holder. At this time it is working really well.


Thank you


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## catty-ratty (Feb 21, 2016)

I'm going to do the pencil holder thing. Anga does laps up and down all the ramps to get food from both bowls I put out! She even hoarded food when she was the only rat I had! There is however one benefit to her hoarding COD. 

She will do ANYTHING for chocolate treats. Of course I have to be careful how much she gets. Luckily, she doesn't actually eat it most of the time and just hoards it. I just take it all back out of the hoarding spot and keep giving her the same chocolate over and over again! 

I can be sneaky that way! ;D


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