What in the world...

Has anyone else had a mother rat kill off any of her babies past their pink /fuzz stage? I just found two bodies that were half eaten and pretty chewed and beat up looking. I know they were alive as of last night since I checked on everyone and had the babies out.

She had 12 babies, 17 days ago. All has been just fine with her and the crew till now. I fed off 3 of them on Thursday, left the remaining 9 with her to grow up some and now well I'm down to 7. I've since removed the babies from her and put them in with another rat. I guess I'll wean them early since I don't have any other mom's that have babies of that age, but only pinks. I don't want those mom's leaving their pinks alone.

I'm pretty shocked since I've never seen a mother rat do this at to her young at that age. Didn't someone else on here have a rat that killed and ate another rat or something? What did you do? I'm thinking of putting this female rat down since she isn't nice and she just killed two of her kids for whatever reason. UGH and of course she had to kill one that I was going to hold back and keep. Stupid rat!!!

I'm seeing a snake or CO2 chamber in her future! :P

Sadly Matt I don't have a snake that is big enough to eat her. Man does she have me mad!

The question is did she really kill them or did they die of natural causes, and she then dispose of them, like rats do since they are after all scavengers?

Actually I never thought of that. It's a really good point and very possible!

Good question Deb. All the babies seem(ed) very healthy, active, alert, eating well and starting to nibble on their lab blocks. I don't know and guess I'll find out if anyone else dies. Hopefully they are all fine and make it!

If the mother had food and water available I would think that the babies died on their own and the mother ate the bodies.

Allison the only experience I've had with that sort of thing was recently. One of our females, Alita, suddenly killed half her litter overnight, though did not eat any of them. One day she had ten, the next day only 5. My only explanation is that it was Alita's last litter and she was getting older so I feel she may have lost her milk or had very little of it and was trying to cull her litter back to save a few of them. I fostered the remaining 5 to another female with a litter the same age and retired Alita.

How old is this rat? Is this her first litter? Was she housed alone with her litter? Is her temperment unstable anyways (aggressive, a biter, etc.)?

I'm not sure how old she and no this is not her first litter. She has been housed by herself since I could tell she was pregnant. She's never been really handled since she's only been used as a breeder rat but she's never shown any aggression towards me or with the male from what I've seen.

It could be a similar situation to Alita and your female has just reached the end of her productive breeding months and can no longer support such a large group of offspring.