# Female rat ''vibrating"?



## noMoreFaith

I don't know how else to describe it. One of my females, which I have for more than 1 year, often feels like her body is ''vibrating'' when I hold her. It's a feeling like her muscles or something are shaking..I can't really descibe it. I read it's a sign the rat is uncomfortable. But my rat, although does not prefer to be picked up (she has a head tilt), is not scared of me at all. Is she in heat? Annoyed? What's this behavior called?


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## Malygon

When female rats are in heat they "vibrate" as invitation for male rats. So it's most likely that.


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## lilspaz68

The vibrating could be nervousness, or it could be she's in heat...they vibrate their ears and you will feel it through their body. But she would also arch her back, frog hop and sometimes act very skittish while in heat.


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## mhaymond

Being skittish is a sign a rat is in heat? I have a girl who has "moods" where she'll go from being sociable to downright petrified of everything. Nothing happens, nothing changes. She just freaks out. And then in a few days or a week or so she's back to normal. So the answer might be she's in heat, huh?


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## lilspaz68

mhaymond said:


> Being skittish is a sign a rat is in heat? I have a girl who has "moods" where she'll go from being sociable to downright petrified of everything. Nothing happens, nothing changes. She just freaks out. And then in a few days or a week or so she's back to normal. So the answer might be she's in heat, huh?


Its not skittish perse, but they are so fixated on breeding, that they are hard to hold, etc. 

Do you have a younger girl? She might be going through her spooky phase. They are fine one day and the next YOU and everything else are a monster trying to eat her. LOL


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## mhaymond

"spooky phase"? One of our rats does this every once and a while - freaks out, shakes at everything, won't come when she's called. But the other one is the same age (6 months) and never has this problem.


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