Stupid rats

I've decided to try live feedings for the first time. I bought two live rats (a few days ago) and a small cage for them to live in for a short while. The guy I bought them from said it would be fine to put them in a cage with a little water and bread for a few days and I also bought a bag of mouse/rat food. Well one of them has died already, right in the small bowl of food. The other one has decided to use the small water bowl as his/her toilet. Am I doing something wrong to allow what seemed to be a healthy rat die so quickly, or is the dead one like it's friend, just stupid, and can't figure out what food is? I had been checking them a few times a day and when I noticed the dead one, it was still warm and so I tossed it into the freezer incase my ball doesn't go after the live one (I'm assuming that's okay since it couldn't have been dead more than a few hours).

Are you using a water bottle or a bowl?

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I started with a bottle, but they would just pack the substrate around the tip where the water comes out. I switched over to the the small bowl thinking they would realize what it was, should I give the bottle another shot?

Yeah if they pile it up again move the bottle.

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Alright I'll give the bottle another chance.

Thanks

I do exactly what you did when I have to transport feeders temporarily. They're left for days up to a week like that and are fine. Food and water dish are provided if I don't have a bottle. And I've never had to deal with clogged sippers or using the water dish as a toilet either.

How long did you have the rats? Even if they couldn't eat or drink, they should be able to survive 5-7 days or maybe even longer without food/water. Its not healthy and they probably would be very weak, but they should still be alive. Makes me think the one who died had problems already before you brought it home.

Or perhaps you're right and just have stupid rats...

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I did notice he wasn't very active compared to the one that's still alive, so now bringing it up he might have had some issue before. You don't think throwing the dead one in the freezer is a bad idea? he couldn't have gone bad in that short of a time period right?

If he just died when you froze him, he shouldn't be bad to feed off.