cannibalism??

So my rat had 11 babies on june 26th. 7 were stillborn, and four lived, so i let her nurse the four, and she's been doing fine. well lately i've noticed the runt, a tad smaller than the other three, but she was still nursing so i thought hey no prob. well i go in there tonight, and i only see three (with their eyes open btw) and i start to move the substrate around, talking to myself. :D ( i could have sworn there was four!!!) then i notice a tail sticking out of a tiny pile of bedding, and i pick it up and only HALF OF THE BODY IS LEFT. ????? what happened? she had food and water, i feed her once a day ( she has a big bowl) so what happened? im just curious. :taz:

Is this her first litter or is she a really young female? That's a lot of stillborns in a litter.

As far as the runt, it may have died and she was just cleaning up the corpse or if she sensed it wasn't a really viable offspring, she may have culled it herself. It's not really as gross as it sounds (well it is by our standards), it's just nature. It's not about food usually as long as the mother rat is well fed and watered.

Exactly what Jo said, sometimes it seems really gross, but animals can't pass up extra protein and nutrition.

If you think of it from the viewpoint of a rat's instincts it makes sense.

If the mother rat left a dead baby just laying there it would decompose quickly. That smell would bring in predators fast and she and the remaining offspring would be in trouble. If she's got some offspring that aren't strong, they aren't going to make it. Her milk will just be wasted feeding them when it could go to her strong babies. So she culls to allow the fittest to survive.

Just because we're around doesn't change how the instinctive mothering works in these rodents.

yeah i could have understood all those reasons, but i had just watered and fed, and the runt seemed as healthy as the others, just smaller, so i dont think that it died and she was cleaning up the waste...although i will keep that in mind next time i see a half eaten body! :D i was just wondering why she nursed the runt so long if she was going to cull. i dont think its the first litter she's had, but i cant be sure. i did think it was alot of stillborns though. maybe next litter will be better. thanks for the help though! :D :bow: