rat cannibalism

I came home the other night to see that one of my rat moms went crazy. She did have 11 babies, but when I cleaned out the cage I could only see about 8 in pieces. The babies were over a week old. She had both food and water in the cage. I just fed her a few hours before I found the mess. I told a guy at work about it and he reccomended wet cat food. He said to just give them a teaspoon a little before, or right after they give birth, and they wont do this. I think he said that it works on mice and rats. Has anyone ever heard of this? Does it work? Should I keep her as a breeder, and try again, or just have her prepare to meet my big girl. As far as I know, this was her first litter. The babies looked healthy, and no runts. Thanx in advance for the advice.

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Originally Posted by Fallguy

I came home the other night to see that one of my rat moms went crazy. She did have 11 babies, but when I cleaned out the cage I could only see about 8 in pieces. The babies were over a week old. She had both food and water in the cage. I just fed her a few hours before I found the mess. I told a guy at work about it and he reccomended wet cat food. He said to just give them a teaspoon a little before, or right after they give birth, and they wont do this. I think he said that it works on mice and rats. Has anyone ever heard of this? Does it work? Should I keep her as a breeder, and try again, or just have her prepare to meet my big girl. As far as I know, this was her first litter. The babies looked healthy, and no runts. Thanx in advance for the advice.

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Yea, one of my rats did the same exact thing.. She raised all of them up till today and they all opened there eyes, and when i went to check on them, she had killed about 5 out of 11... And brutally, cracked there skulls, and it was just terrible, and so i didnt risk anymore getting killed so i just put out the mother and am going to try and wean these guys early.. Its better than risking more of them getting brutally killed... I would rather just one rat die for all of them to have a better chance... I want to use them all as breeders (i think i got all females...)

biggest mistake beginner rat breeders do is feed bagged food from pet stores. All it is, is a filler and does not give the mother rats who are nursing enough nutrition. You need a high quality lab block for food. I use only Mazuri 9F and have no baby killing except in mice.

I have not heard of kitten milk stop a mother of any rodent curb her killing of a litter. Rats are excellent mothers, and there are a lot of reasons why she may kill her litter, could be the animals weren't being nursed, weren't thriving, she wasn't thriving, etc etc.

Provide a rat lab block, clean fresh water, clean nesting bedding, and give her a stress free environment with no other animals or interruptions.

Try her one more time if you like, if she does it again, she is best passed over as a breeder.

I've always fed Mazuri 6F and I've only had a couple litters where the mothers killed some of the babies. It seems like the babies were unhealthy to begin with so whenever I see that happening I pull all the babies and euthanize them.