Jumping
Overview and Meaning
Jumping is a stereotypy - a repetitive, unvarying behavior lacking apparent goal or function. A mouse can jump about 2-3 times per second, momentarily pausing between jumps.
Description
Jumping is a repetitious upright motion towards the cage top. Sometimes when rearing, mice may jump up towards the cage lid.
Jumping can be distinguished as follows:
- Single jumps are a perfectly normal behavior.
- To classify this behavior as a stereotypy, there will be an intense cluster of jumps (more than 20 per minute) or the mouse will do a smaller number of jumps but in multiple consecutive sessions.
- A jumping session ends when the mouse stops jumping and moves away from the jumping site and performs another behavior for a significant amount of seconds before returning to jumping.
Classification
Contexts
Variants
None