ASF eating babies

[Marrissa]

Ok so this is my first group of ASFs. I checked sexes today after I saw all the first litter babies killed today. 3 females and two males. (I fed off one of the males after tonight) It seems when they get to about weaned stage they kill babies. There is another group of babies about two weeks and another about 5 days. There's plenty of room. They're in a 104qt tub with a wheel getting fed a sue bee mix with Doggy Bag dog food. I had to switch to this food due to the insane price of NE and this mix is cheaper than Mazuri and they seem to like it better.

I don't get it. They aren't overcrowded. Why would they kill babies about the weaned stage? Can I not leave them in to expand numbers? Do I need to move any about weaned size to different tubs to grow up to be feeders? That's a lot of work if I can't add new members to grow up due to them being so social and not liking new members.

Any ideas? Mice and rats are so so easy compared to these guys.

[Asherah]

Following. I have a small colony set up and one of my "females" turned out to be a small male. They had a litter 3 days ago. I had checked sexes again when I noticed the one female so heavily pregnant and the 2nd "female" not showing at all. The males aren't fighting but I think should probably remove the smaller male.

[jackiee]

sometimes asfs eat there young if they have a low protein diet, I have had 1 or 2 young eaten but its very rare imo

[grcforce327]

If you want to produce a lot,PULL THE PREGNANT FEMALES! PERIOD! Put your breeders in LARGE GROUPS! Then...PULL THE PREGNANT FEMALES and put them in smaller nursing tubs. Same for rats and mice.

[bivman]

Then you put the colony back together? I've bred ASF's for 5 years, it doesn't work like that

[mdb730]

I have not had a problem with 1.3 setup, I pull the male after the second litter is born and put him alone. By the time the second litter is born the mother of the first litter is already pregnant again. I wait until all pregnant females give birth and all the baby rats are weaned before removing them to one of my 3 grow out racks and reintroducing the male. I made the mistake of removing the male and placing him with some juvie males. The adult male went after my young juvie males and tried to karate chop all of them. Since I started this process I have had zero loses from aggressive males.

[JudeWriley]

I didn't think you could remove and reintroduce ASFs like that? Everything I've read says that once a colony is established you can't break it up and try to reintroduce later.