# Hiding food



## MimiSkye (Feb 3, 2014)

Hi all!
My rats (especially my older girls, Olive and Penelope) insist on hiding their food everytime I fill their bowl. The second I put it in they both get to work, shoveling as many lab blocks as they can into their mouths and bringing it up to their igloo. I've tried eveything I can think of to get them to stop...I've moved the igloo downstairs, moved the food bowl upstairs, moved the bowl INTO the igloo etc...but no matter what I do they just pick a different hiding place or rearrange it so that they can bury the food in (or behind) the igloo.

Can anyone tell me what they are trying to accomplish by hiding their food? Maybe if I understand why they do it, I can find a way to stop the behavior. It makes it very difficult for me to judge when they are out of food or not lol.


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## Isamurat (Jul 27, 2012)

Its actually very natural stashing behaviour. In the wild rats will find food and take it back to there various stashes to help provide for them in lean times, a bit like squirrles in a lot of ways. Our pet rats arent that distant to there wild cousins and so still ahve this behaviour. It really doesnt harm them to have there food out fo there bowl, however if you want to stop it the best way is to hide there food for them, otherwise known as scatter and enrichment feeding. Work out how much food they need in a day then hide it around the cage, maybe hidden in the substrate, a bit in the litter tray, some more in a screwed up ball of paper, and so on. They will then work to try and find there food and eat when they find it, unless they are full then they may still stash it. Its also much more interesting and challenging for them


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## lovemyfurries (Aug 13, 2014)

Mine all love to stash as well. Not only in the cage but under couches, in beds you name it. They get most distressed when I have to eventually throw some of the uneaten goods away as they go soft and one boy puts his fresh stuff on top of the dry, so gets quite mushy. They even drag their bedding into their bowls when given little bits of yoghurt etc to keep for later. Of course not at all caring about all the extra work they're giving me. hope this helps you to see it's all quite natural though...and very cute


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## Gussy (Jul 4, 2014)

My boys hide their food sometimes, and when I give them treats they run off with them instantly. It's just their way of claiming what's theirs. Interestingly though, my one boy more frequently takes all his toys in the cage and puts it on top of the food bowl to hide the food instead of taking it and hiding it somewhere else. It's kind of cute to watch


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## lovemyfurries (Aug 13, 2014)

I love watching their shenanigans! Very entertaining. Aside from covering his food before leaving the cage my one boy cleans himself for at least 10 -15 minutes then comes to the door as if to say okay I'm ready now. He's almost obsessive about cleaning and preening!


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## Lita (Jul 10, 2014)

Our older girls pile bedding onto their food bowl, it's rather funny but a pain to dig through to make sure they have something to eat. But hey, what do they care. XD They always act like their starving but usually just go drop the treats we give them until we refuse to give them more and close the cage. Then they'll go eat. Greedy little buggers. XD


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

After Amelia passed away, Max didn't come out to eat for a couple weeks, she lives free range and my wife was wondering where the fruit flies were coming from... She had a stash somewhere that she was living off of, she actually gained weight.

Rats store food for emergencies, that's just what they do. And very likely Max was looting Amelia's stash too... It helped with the fruit flies.


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## Rayne333 (Aug 29, 2014)

My boys hide their food, it makes it very hard to figure out how much to feed them. Two boys 6 weeks old how much should I feed them?


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## LittleBird (Jun 22, 2014)

Out of my 4 girls, I only have one hoarder and boy is she obsessive! I've only had my girls for about 6 weeks now and at first, I'd go thru the cage and find all of Buffy's stashes and put them back in the bowl so I could see if they needed food. It was stressing me out because they were just babies and I was afraid they weren't going to get enough to eat. But every time, Buffy would just empty the food again and hide it. So I've learned where her stashes are and I just check there first to see if they need to be fed. If there's a huge pile of pellets then I don't refill their bowl. 

You can't stop the behavior. You just have to learn to accept it and work with it.


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## Moody (Mar 4, 2014)

Once (when I just had one rat, Astrid), when cleaning underneath my bed, I found a giant stash of both food and knick-knacks. It really is super normal, I understand the frustration (especially when I accidentally throw out a bunch of uneaten blocks when I clean out the cage, not remembering to check first). Fortunately though adding another rat to the situation helped me out a bit because they are both hesitant to stash food that the other one might steal haha.

(My dad likes to say that they are Doomsday Preppers!)


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## theAfanc (Aug 29, 2014)

Haha, doomsday prepers! That is just the cutest!


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## redcoat (Jun 7, 2014)

I have two rats, so they don't stash as much. However, stashing can lead to fruit flies so remember to clean up the food. You can also just feed them when you play with them, so that they don't hide the food.


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## lovemyfurries (Aug 13, 2014)

I let my guys hide the dry food on occasion, but any fresh food I only give in the cage and then remove it the next day. Everyone must find what works for them


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

I usually wind up with one smart rat and one naive rat. Amelia stashed her food and Fuzzy Rat stole it, now cloud stashes food and Max steals it... It's kind of funny, last night Cloud was hugging my ankle for more food having stashed her chips while Max strolled right by with the food Cloud had already stashed... So I pointed and said to Cloud "Look Max has your dinner... you should have seen the confused look on Cloud's face when she realized what was happening and went after Max in hot pursuit.


Max can smell a single corn chip from 50 feet away, and somehow Cloud just doesn't get it. No matter where she hides her food... Max is going to eat it eventually. But that doesn't stop her from trying.


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## lovemyfurries (Aug 13, 2014)

Ha ha ha, I can just see it happening! They are so amazingly intelligent but invariably we have one that's not so bright. When my boy stashes and keeps coming back for more I sometimes take from his own stash and give it back to him. I know that's teasing but so funny. He does the same with tissues, he likes to pull them through the bars of the cage ( they'll pull anything they can reach through ) but he likes the tissues so he can make a nice bed. But because he can do it endlessly I also start taking what he's already stashed and give it back, otherwise it can become a costly affair. He either doesn't notice what's happening or doesn't care he just keeps on taking. He's so cute!


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## Rayne333 (Aug 29, 2014)

My boys stash food and make a mess with the rest of it! I mean it's all over the cage like they have a party each night with it. I clean it up and put it back in the bowl I'd sure like them not to be so messy, hopefully that will change with time


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## Moody (Mar 4, 2014)

In the past week I've witnessed the older of two of my girls carrying food from the bowl on the top floor of their house to the level below to stash it in their little igloo house. She just goes back and forth and back and forth until she is satisfied. It's hilarious.


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## lovemyfurries (Aug 13, 2014)

That's so cute! My boy Mischief deliberately tips his bowl over when he's trying to get our attention.


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## Rayne333 (Aug 29, 2014)

Hopefully with our new cage I'll get a bowl that attaches to the wire and it will keep them from tipping the food bowl food.


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## lovemyfurries (Aug 13, 2014)

Aw come on, let them have their fun...


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## MimiSkye (Feb 3, 2014)

Yeah Olive and Penelope are the only two who seem to be obsessive about it! I don't mind them doing it if it makes them happy, but then how am I supposed to know if they are out of food lol. Could someone tell me how much I am supposed to feed them? I don't want to over feed them, but at the same time I have a dwarf girl who seems to get pushed around a bit and I think the older girls try to hide the food from her. She always eats alone  She doesn't do the stashing, so whenever I fill the food she just eats by the food bowl and then eventually the older girls will have moved it all and the bowl will be empty. Since shes so small shes a very slow eater. I think she does just fine, shes a good size, but I don't want her to ever not have food if the bigger girls stash it all.


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