WTH..They killed and ate one of their peers???

[alohareptiles]

I just went down and saw one of my rats was killed and partially eaten by it's tub mates...Is this normal? What should I do? I'm going to put the rest in a new tub and dispose of the remains...I haven't read anything about this before I started breeding...Do I need to be worried about this?

[Hulihzack]

How many rats are in the tub, what sexes/age are they, and what was the one that died? It's normal for rats to eat their dead, but we need more info to know why the rat died. It's not too common, but babies do die or are killed by the mother because of defects.

[alohareptiles]

Thanks for the question...I guess I was in shock...
There was only 4 (now 3 females) from the last litter that hatched...They are probably around 2 months old...All were healthy and she was my lone blue dumbo that I was hoping to hold back...The rest were dark gray dumbos...I hope this might shed some light on what might have happened...Could it be rat racially motivated? LOL sorry, had to find some humor in it...

[MarkS]

How do you know the others killed it? These are not long lived animals and they can suddenly up and die for a number of reasons. Rats are rather pragmatic in that they wouldn't dream of letting a food source like that go to waste so they'll almost always eat any of their cage mates that die. It doesn't mean that they killed it though.

[alohareptiles]

Mark..Good point...I checked on them the night before all all looked great...I was preparing a mass tub movement before the death...

If she did die of natural causes that baffled me because she was the most active of all her tub mates...And they probably did what you described because she was looking like a Nightmare On Elm Street scene...Disemboweled and to the bone on most parts...Sorry to be graphic but I guess being ambiguous doesn't help the diagnosis...

Any other insights...All seems good right now, just checked on everyone and no more losses...

[sassy-pants]

Did they have access to food and water at all times? I've seen things go ugly when water or food weren't available, and they'll pick the weakest to die and feed on, mostly for water content.

Also, I've had several blue dumbos before, and in my experience, they're not as hardy as say, a plain hooded rat. Maybe something like the wobble in spiders?

[Hulihzack]

One of my seemingly healthy females died in pregnancy a few weeks ago. I suspect it was because I was using dog food and it was her second litter. Babies born and nursed on moms with dog food also were not as healthy: slow growth, low weight and deaths. I have since switched to breeder rat/mouse diet from a feed shop and have seen a great increase in survival rate and overall health. If you're using dog food or anything but breeder rat/mouse specific feed I would highly recommed switching.

[alohareptiles]

Thank you for helping with the analysis...They have full access to quality rat lab block and water bottle dangling in full reach of all...I try to keep the numbers down so that there isn't mass crowding in the tubs...

I was wondering about the dumbos, but don't have any experience with any other types of rats because all my feeders are dumbos...It's taken a while to get my colony going well...

I also made sure that I got a lot of different bloodlines in the breeding mix so that it's not just a continual breeding chain...I made friends with a dumbo breeder and she gave many healthy starters to get this breeding project off the ground. I will admit I'm trying to get a majority of blues for the most part, but that will take time and strategic hold backs unless all get knocked off...

[WingedWolfPsion]

There's no reason to dump the cage mates unless you suspect something contagious, or they're eating pups. If you have a large number of rats, you'll find that they'll die suddenly for various reasons, and their cage mates will almost always partially eat them. Grisly, but normal. It could have been a hidden defect, myco (which they all carry), a bad pregnancy--there are a lot of reasons why rats might just die.

[alohareptiles]

Winged...What is considered a larger number? Is it proportional to the number of rats that you'll see spontaneous deaths?

The reason I ask is I just came back up from checking on the rats and another blue had passed away...This one wasn't eaten or abused in anyway...He was in a complete different container with only 4 other rats like the other...I'm losing all my blues and those are the ones that I'm trying to hold back and keep...

From what I'm hearing this is for the most part normal, I'm just seeing more and more sensitive to is since I just recently started breeding rats? Especially since they full access to quality food, water and aren't crowded in their living areas...