babies! and questions

ahhh there's only three babies left!! she must have eaten the others. i took the hide out so i can keep an eye on them. Shes building a nest with the aspen right now and carrying the babies around as if to care for them. Why would she care for these but eat the others? I dont understand.

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Originally Posted by littleindiangirl

Oh.. yea that would make sense..

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I wish they could get a little more indepth then just "early development" , but it is wikipedia..

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Actually, if you haven't found it yet there's a detailed article about it there. Here's the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colostrum

Here's my own link on rats milk:
http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/reprint/54/3/345.pdf

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Originally Posted by amcceney

ahhh there's only three babies left!! she must have eaten the others. i took the hide out so i can keep an eye on them. Shes building a nest with the aspen right now and carrying the babies around as if to care for them. Why would she care for these but eat the others? I dont understand.

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There's many different reasons. One they could have died on their own, she will eat the bodies. Or, the other female destroyed them, or she doesn't understand what they are. There's so many reason why an animal destroys her babies.

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Originally Posted by amcceney

ahhh there's only three babies left!! she must have eaten the others. i took the hide out so i can keep an eye on them. Shes building a nest with the aspen right now and carrying the babies around as if to care for them. Why would she care for these but eat the others? I dont understand.

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Are you sure they were eaten and not just hidden? Rodents, in my experience, are very good at hiding their offspring.

Also, the eating of young behavior is very, very touchy. Rabbits also exhibit this particular behavior, and it's generally in response to stress and predatory "threat." When I was raising rabbits many, many years ago my females would eat all of their kits if a dog came within sight of their hutches. it was really stressful and disturbing to me at the time because I was only 13-14.

Animals can only absorb colostrum within 12-24 hours, after that, they don't absorb anymore antibodies, so giving colostrum(if hand-rearing an animal) after that time period, is useless.

Sounds like you may be messing with her too much. Leave her alone as much as possible and put her in a dark place. I leave my mice alone for a week at a time, then clean their tubs and do everything I need to on that one day. Keeps everyone happy, me included :)

I just wanted to put in my 2 cents about the whole colostrum issue here. I would have to look it up for rats/mice specifically but I believe that basic immune systems/antibodies work much the same way for rodents as for humans. In humans, they produce colostrum just before it switches over to milk. Colostrum does have some extra nutrients as well as contain some antibodies, but the antibodies passed from mom to baby depend upon what antibodies mom has. Mom cannot pass on antibodies that she does not have. Also these antibodies are short lived, they are not permanent. Permanent antibodies are created by a persons immune system by either fighting off an illness, or through a shot (which in effect is the body fighting off foreign invaders thus creating the antibodies in their immune systems by activating the T-cells and B-cells and going through the whole antibody creating cycle, which i will not get into here as it can be really long). Antibodies passed from mom to baby do not activate the babies immune system, therefore the babies immune system does not have the knowledge to create these same antibodies on their own. The antibodies passed would just help the baby, should the baby come into contact with an illness that the baby had antibodies passed for. Like I said, the momma can only pass on antibodies that she herself has, so if the baby comes into contact with an illness that the momma does not have antibodies for, the antibodies passed from momma to baby would not be helpful. And again, these antibodies are short lived (the ones possibly passed from mom), once the antibodies cycle out of the body, they no longer will help the baby. These antibodies are only there to give the baby a slight edge in the first few weeks of life, when they are a bit weaker.
So really, from what I have learned in school, even if a baby did not feed off of their own mom, they would still grow and develop properly and would not be "defect" just because they did not feed off their own mom. But at the same time, again I have only really studied humans and antibodies in general and do not know the specifics for rodents. But just thought I would throw something else in here for people to think about.
In case anyone is wondering, I have studied 1 year of human anatomy and physiology, along with a couple of years of biology, and a year of microbiology in college (I have taken alot of biology type classes because I couldn;t decide what I wanted to do for a long time before I decided to work towards becoming an RN.)

Thanks Pam for the great overview.


So as I think about this I had a thought and wanted to run it by everyone.

It would seem to me that the colostrum antibody benefit would be less useful in our closed breeding colonies then for say a wild rat (who would come into contact with more potential diseases). I haven't had a disease issue in a couple of years (outside one rat with an RI last year) - so the extra protection might not be as useful.

Thoughts?

I bring this up in relation to the original discussion point about seperating pregnant females so that the colostrum only goes to her unborn babies once born. Since I don't seperate females (allowing them to help each other) I am trying to determine if this needs to change and that I would see a marked benefit in the colony from doing so...I understand we cannot find conclusive proof one way or another so I am curious about my logic and your thoughts on it.

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Originally Posted by lord jackel

Thanks Pam for the great overview.


So as I think about this I had a thought and wanted to run it by everyone.

It would seem to me that the colostrum antibody benefit would be less useful in our closed breeding colonies then for say a wild rat (who would come into contact with more potential diseases). I haven't had a disease issue in a couple of years (outside one rat with an RI last year) - so the extra protection might not be as useful.

Thoughts?

I bring this up in relation to the original discussion point about seperating pregnant females so that the colostrum only goes to her unborn babies once born. Since I don't seperate females (allowing them to help each other) I am trying to determine if this needs to change and that I would see a marked benefit in the colony from doing so...I understand we cannot find conclusive proof one way or another so I am curious about my logic and your thoughts on it.

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Well said. With all the evidence that's been brought up (I've been reading behind the scenes too ) I think Lord Jackel is pretty correct that in a closed breeding colony, the babies do not have a specific need for the antibodies given from the mother in the first place.

Now another question, are there any side effects from nursing a pregnant female? I would think this would just put more stress on her body with the pregnancy and all.

Also, Colostrum production vs. milk production, at least in humans, is dictated by hormones and time in relation to the birthing event, not a specific quantity. It happens for a few months before, and a few days/weeks after. Wouldn't it stand to reason, then, that even if other babies nursed from the pregnant female she would still be producing colostrum for her own litter later on?