MY heater malfunctioned causing me to lose my fav. mother rat orphaning 11 babies!

[MoshBalls]

I just can't believe my favorite rat died. It had only been 4 hours since I was playing with her and the room was fine. I went in to check at 10:30 and turn off the light and the room was at 81 degrees. I lost 3 pregnant mice, 1 male mouse, and the mother rat. The 11 babies are only about 5 days old! All of them are still alive, but they were all over the place in the 20 gallon tank. Most of them had crawled the entire length of the tank to lay by her.

I put them in with my other litter of 11 and I made an emergency run to Wal-mart for kitten formula. Unfortunately they didn't seem very responsive to it. The foster mother was attempting to nurse all 22! Her litter is only about 3 days old. Do you think she will be able to nurse all of them?

I am really upset because I was planning on keeping most of the orphaned litter as breeders. They have great markings and their mother had such a good temperament. I really hope they make it.

[Simple Man]

So it quit working and they froze to death? How did they die that fast? Sad you lost your rats.

Regards,

B

[snakesRkewl]

Confused, 81 degrees is not hot enough to kill rats or mice

Sorry for your loss...

[PitOnTheProwl]

Question as well?? Mine have been from the 50s to mid 90s with no problems

[anthonym]

Yeah, I was wondering the same thing. I keep my rat rack in my reptile room, and the ambient temp in there is between 78-83; my rats are doing just great. I have a hard time believing an 81 degree room was the cause of death? That said, whatever it was, thats a bummer to lose a bunch like that. =/

[MoshBalls]

Well the heater said 81 degrees. After the malfunction I took one of our thermostats that we aren't using in there to see what it read and we switched heaters. It happened again with the new heater also. The heater said 86 degrees but the thermostat said 101.

The room is in the basement approximately 6 x 5 feet. I installed Styrofoam insulation with the metal lining because I couldn't get the room to get above 70. It worked great keeping it warm, a little too good in fact. I am not sure why the heaters didn't kick off when they reached their setting of 72 degrees. I ended up finding another space heater that I can attach to the thermostat as a back up to shut it off when it gets too hot. I couldn't use it with the other two heaters because when they loose power they reboot and have to be manually turned back on. I took the rats out of the room for about 15 hours and kept testing the heat. It appears that the new system is working well so I returned them.

I really hope this works out, but if not it seems I have a walk in incubator. :/ BTW the foster mother is doing great! She is working her little but off keeping all 22 feed. I have been taking them out and trying to give them formula also but they don't seem very receptive to it.

[Shenzi Sixaxis]

I'd give the foster plenty of fatty foods. Other than that, she should be able to nurse them all, but I'd start culling or remove them once they can eat solids and get them on solids so she doesn't get skinny from nursing 22 rats 1/4 her size almost.

[RichsBallPythons]

What type of heater are you using.

I personally use the kenwood oil filled radiator that has built in thermostat. I set it at 77 and i get 81 in room. They only cost 65$ at lowes/home depot

[MoshBalls]

The new set up is working great, I haven't had a problem since I switched heaters. I did loose two of them and the smaller ones were getting too skinny so I pulled out the larger ones for about 6 hours for a couple of days and bottle feed them o the others could hav a shot. Luckily another rat just gave birth to7 so I was able to put 5 of the smmallest in with her and nnow they are doing great! There eyes nd ears are open and theyre weighing around 22-25grams each. And I have been adding more nuts than usual to her treats.

[MoshBalls]

Here are some pictures of the babies before their eyes were open. Very cute.
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