Was it the diet change? *WARNING GRAPHIC PIC*

Hey everyone,

I know all about the rats eating some of their youngs (pinks) but how about eating some of their 3-4 week old young?? I keep 0.2 per tub and in one of my tubs I had (13) 3week old babies left, I had fed some pups off. When I cleaned the tubs on 11/5 I had (8) 3 week old babies left and I wondered WTH happened, I had the feeling they were eaten but couldn't believe it, not at that age. Then I cleaned the tub on 11/12 I had (4) 4 week old babies left and I found one of the babies almost completely eaten (graphic pic below) The only thing that I have changed was the diet, I used to feed Mazuri but switched about a month ago to TSC Doggie bag. Are they eating the babies because they're not getting all the nutrition they need? Should I cull the females? They are well fed and maintained, food and water at all times and cleaned once a week depending on smell. I was thinking of going back to Mazuri but will wait to hear some advice.
I forgot to mention, the male was never in the tub with the babies. He gets rotated but unfortunately he died two weeks ago, I don't have a clue why.
Thanks

*GRAPHIC PIC*
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...1-13220055.jpg

Also, I avg 16-22 pinks per female, pic below is 21
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/f...1-13220443.jpg

If you're averaging 16 to 22 babies per litter, your rats need the absolute best nutrition available.

The only reason they would eat their babies at that age, is if they are seriously lacking in something. I would switch to feeding them your own mixed food. 16-22 is a LOT of babies for one mom to take care of, especially if you're using sub-par food.

I don't know about 'doggy bag' but it's not meant for rats, so I doubt it has the proper nutrition for them (not that most pre-bagged rat foods do either. :P )

Get back on Mazuri...6F is the best. Dont be cheap out on the food just because they're rats, they're still animals too. Happy rats make more babies!! :)

I don't know what Doggie Bag is like either. I don't feed my rats solely dog food, I feed a mix of dog food and rat food. I'm not sure, but the dog food could be lacking nutrition that the rat food has. For awhile I was feeding my pet rats some of my dog's expensive food and they were getting fat as heck, but my feeders who eat lower quality/protein dog food (and rat food) all the time aren't fat. They prefer the dog food over the rat food, even the Mazuri, but there may be something in rodent food that isn't in dog food. That's one thing I haven't closely studied. I know rodent food is mostly grains and so is cheap dog food, so.... who really knows, I'm too tried to look right now, I haven't slept yet. The joys of night shift :)

If you don't want to pay the money for Mazuri, which I understand! I used to feed Mazuri, but recently switched to Kent because it's half the price for double the amount of food. It's not as high of quality, but it's decent. Most feed stores can order it for you. If you aren't around a feed store, if there are any stores that sell horse/cattle feed they usually carry Kent. Granted I live in Iowa and feed/farm stores are rampant, I don't know what the rest of the country is like. You can do a search for Kent feeds on the net just like Mazuri and find dealers near you. I'm getting 50 pounds for $10.99.

Oh and you know how you always tease me about holding back too many babies! Well I picked up 11 rats from a friend of mine, and I'm holding back 6 babies I have right now. I knew at one point I had 13 breeders, so that puts me at at least 30 breeders..... I went a little crazy! Thank heavens I have 14 bps to feed now and can justify having so many dang rats! :rofl:

I would guess the momma rat was low on protein and found out how to get some.
I've never lost a rat at that age due to predation and would probably switch back to Mazuri given the size of litters just to be sure.
I also supplement their food with yogurt for moms with babies, especially large litters.
I also give left over meats and other quality treats after dinner time, ok so I spoil my rats :P

Dog food is for dogs. While it may be similar in makeup for those looking to pinch some pennies, the lab based research that goes into quality rodent foods is the best thing for them. I do mix in the DB 25/75 with Mazuri for the rodents I'm growing out, I wouldn't dream of offering it to breeders.

Never seen moms eat babies that were that far along. And it sure doesn't seem like it was a random occurrence. Myself, I'd feed that entire group off.

Ive been feeding the TSC Dog Food for 2 months now. Its been great for me. I got my 1.4 setup mid September, every female dropped a litter of close to 12 all within days of each other. This was there first litter too. Ive got a weaned container with 40-50 babies right now. All the weaned are over 50g. The food really does work. All i can think of is if you changed the food while they had babies, that made them picky and wasnt eating the dog food at first which caused them to eat there young. I changed my soft furs from hog feed to dog food and one of my sets had some babies with them and they ended up eating 3 of them a couple days of switching food. Some animals dont adapt to change as well as others. Thats all i can think of. Also the dog food is 18% protein and the Muzuri 6F is 16% protein. There is nothing bad in the dog food that would harm the rats or make them malnutritioned. Doesnt even contain food coloring.

I've never bred rat for feeders, but have for pet and show, and have never had rats cannibalize. I'd say they have to be seriously lacking in something. I also made my own food mixed from high quality dog kibble, high quality muslix type cereals, some dried pastas, and some Pretty Bird pellets. Among other fresh things from time to time. It's actually alot cheaper than Mazuri IMHO or any other "bought" food imho. I would do some lab blocks for teeth work as well.

Thanks everyone. I will go back on Mazuri today. I thought maybe someone else expirienced this but I guess not, weird. I did notice that they eat the dog food much faster so in my personal expirience so far I don't think I really saved any pennies as planned but that's what I get for trying to save a dollar, it never fails. Thank you everyone.

Stephanie - WOW up to 30 breeders, talk about mass production...LOL As long as you have the snakes to "take care of them" . You figure the more rats the more snakes you're going to need...LOL After losing my male rat and some being eaten I'm falling behind. I'm raising two males to start breeding soon and I'm holding back two females from the pic above. The mother and grandmother always give me large numbers :gj:

I only have 15 BP atm but i do have 3 hog island boa, im running 90 female rats each throwing about 12 pups every 6 weeks, so im looking at 150-180 rats a week. i use a mix of 2/5 Mazuri f6 2/5 kent, and 1/5 old style dog food cost per pound is around .44 its not so bad but i go threw alot a food a week so cutting a few corners with the dog food goes a long way sometimes. but i do notice that all of my pups eat the dog food over the rat block. i also feed all my adults yogurt 2 times a week and they are all put on weigh quick. some of my females are in the 500g range and my males are all over 600g

the doggie bag is fine.

Remind me, did I tell you before or not....let your rats alone.

Yes you can wean them to a new diet, however...wean

Do not just up and switch diets on them.

an extreme diet change, a change in temps and many other factors could be leading to what you have experienced. Mazuri and doggie bag in the same hopper and most rats will rush to feeding on the doggie bag, what happens to those that don't? they cause stuff like this to happen. There's a good chance of switching them back will have the same effect. Suffer through and quit changing stuff on them. They are not getting the big variety they would in nature. When you make drastic changes to them in captivity, it can have drastic effects. The doggie bag works fine for half the cost of Mazuri. Those who say differently haven't tried it.

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Originally Posted by suzuki4life

Those who say differently haven't tried it.

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See my post above. I have actually tried the dog food, and a week into adding it into the Mazuri 50/50 in their wire hoppers both soft furs and regular rats started wiping out entire litters. They also quickly started to look greasy and stunk more. It continued that way for a few weeks before I put them back on 100% Mazuri. Could it have been something else? Sure it could have. But I've been raising my own rats for several years now and nothing else had changed in their environment. The only ones who actually seemed to thrive on the dog food were my mice.

I guess some people love it, some people hate it, and some won't have an opinion either way. Myself, I'm sticking to giving my breeder animals rat food and no dog food, and that's based on my personal experiments. To claim that "those who say differently haven't tried it" is pretty condescending, but at least that's what I've come to expect from you so I'm not surprised. :gj:

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Originally Posted by Shadera

See my post above. I have actually tried the dog food, and a week into adding it into the Mazuri 50/50 in their wire hoppers both soft furs and regular rats started wiping out entire litters. They also quickly started to look greasy and stunk more. It continued that way for a few weeks before I put them back on 100% Mazuri. Could it have been something else? Sure it could have. :

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a week into it your entire setup changed that severely all from merely adding another food to your hopper?(in addition to the mazuri)

Sorry but I call b/s on this one. Why? because you did not wean them from anything, you added a new option to their diet. This is like saying your animals changed behavior because you put a red chair in the same room. If Mazuri supplied them with the needed material which avoided their objectable behvior it was still being offered, hence your setup never changed. You have this mind set that "dog food is for dogs", so you were biased and looked for reasons it would fail.

Depending on type of dog food you offered, their feces could have had more odor. Higher protein= more odor. Watch "Manswers" if you want the long winded explaination online if you want.

But as said before, the TSC dog food has VERY similar ingredients as lab block. It also has animal protein which Mazuri uses but Harlen doesn't. Apparently due to success rates of using both lab blocks, it doesn't matter if the rats are fed animal OR palnt protein, they produce off of both. From my own personal experience, switching from Mazuri to harlen has huge and very tragic initial losses very similar as to those expressed before. That is of course based on a very quick and forced weaning situation.

I have experimented with mazuri, Kent, harlen, Purina, ABM hog feed, TSC hog feed, Zeigler, Old Roy (years ago) and TSC Doggie bag. Bang for the buck goes to the TSC.

I'm with Suzuki. My rats are doing fantastic on the doggy bag food. I noticed decreased litters on the hog feed so I switched my soft furs to dog food and the litters are back to over 12 and the soft furs are getting bigger faster than before. The large rats are producing wonderfully and the babies grow extremely fast. It really does work if you stick with it.

Thanks all for replying everyone.

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Originally Posted by suzuki4life

the doggie bag is fine.

Remind me, did I tell you before or not....let your rats alone.

Yes you can wean them to a new diet, however...wean

Do not just up and switch diets on them.

an extreme diet change, a change in temps and many other factors could be leading to what you have experienced. Mazuri and doggie bag in the same hopper and most rats will rush to feeding on the doggie bag, what happens to those that don't? they cause stuff like this to happen. There's a good chance of switching them back will have the same effect. Suffer through and quit changing stuff on them. They are not getting the big variety they would in nature. When you make drastic changes to them in captivity, it can have drastic effects. The doggie bag works fine for half the cost of Mazuri. Those who say differently haven't tried it.

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Suzuki -
I have been following your advice, I don't bother the rats at all except when adding fresh water, food and cleaning which is on Tuesdays and Fridays(cleaning), other than that I don't see them and I have had great results up until my male died but I have two males almost ready for the females. I have not gone out to buy Mazuri yet because of work, extra hours and all but after reading some more advice I have changed my mind. I will stop changing their diet and stick with TSC but I must admit that when I changed the diet I did not wean them, it was from one day to the next. It never crossed my mind that it would affect them so much, hey lesson learned right. Hopefully my production picks up again. Thank you

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Originally Posted by jben

Thanks all for replying everyone.



Suzuki -
I have been following your advice, I don't bother the rats at all except when adding fresh water, food and cleaning which is on Tuesdays and Fridays(cleaning), other than that I don't see them and I have had great results up until my male died but I have two males almost ready for the females. I have not gone out to buy Mazuri yet because of work, extra hours and all but after reading some more advice I have changed my mind. I will stop changing their diet and stick with TSC but I must admit that when I changed the diet I did not wean them, it was from one day to the next. It never crossed my mind that it would affect them so much, hey lesson learned right. Hopefully my production picks up again. Thank you

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keep them on a consistent diet, then use them as your garbage disposal. Mine get any meats we do not eat including bones. Fresh veggies normally will be taken eagerly. I also will toss in extra meal worms or super worms on occasion. With your cleaning schedule this will be no big deal.

I have been ridiculously busy and I haven't been around lately, but just look at the labels folks. The Doggy Bag is practically lab block. It has just a touch more protein and that's about it.

My entire colony is pumping out about 12 pups per litter on Doggy Bag. I will occasionally have losses when moms play tug of war with babies, but they're not cannibalizing them for nutrients. In fact, when a pup dies I usually pull it out of the tub uneaten.

Overcrowding, lack of food, or lack of water are usually the main causes for larger rats killing and eating smaller rats.

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Originally Posted by suzuki4life

keep them on a consistent diet, then use them as your garbage disposal. Mine get any meats we do not eat including bones. Fresh veggies normally will be taken eagerly. I also will toss in extra meal worms or super worms on occasion. With your cleaning schedule this will be no big deal.

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Thank you, will do.

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Originally Posted by tomfromtheshade

I have been ridiculously busy and I haven't been around lately, but just look at the labels folks. The Doggy Bag is practically lab block. It has just a touch more protein and that's about it.

My entire colony is pumping out about 12 pups per litter on Doggy Bag. I will occasionally have losses when moms play tug of war with babies, but they're not cannibalizing them for nutrients. In fact, when a pup dies I usually pull it out of the tub uneaten.

Overcrowding, lack of food, or lack of water are usually the main causes for larger rats killing and eating smaller rats.

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Hey Tom - I'm going to stick with Doggy Bag and offer scraps like Suzuki adviced. I keep 1.2 breeders per tub and remove the weaned rats at 4 weeks. Their food and water and refilled twice per week with neither never going empty.:gj: Thanks

Hey guys,
I lurk more than I post here, but I thought I'd put in my .02..

I've been breeding rodents for years, both for pet trade and feed. I breed everything from rats/mice to ASF, Degu, spiny, hamsters and gerbils, hedgehogs, sugargliders, birds, you name it.
On rats, I've literally tried every conceivable diet out there. I always go back to a quality rodent pellet, every single time for my breeders. Currently, I have around 150 breeding female rats, and I just bought an additional 40 for another rack I just finished, and to bring in some new blood. When I do have cannibalistic rats, I flag them, give them another chance, then it's off to be fed off if they do it again.
I really believe that 90% of canilbal rats are doing it because of dietary issues. Then, you just have the bad ones that are just going to eat other rats no matter what.
I feed either Mazuri 6F, or Purina LabDiet, or a mixture of both. The LabDiet has more protein, and I seem to get better production and recovery on that, but the cost difference is $8 a bag at $28.50 per 50# bag. So, in short, 90% of the time, I use Mazuri 6F, until I run out, then, its off to my local feed store, who stocks the Labdiet for me...
Get some of your buddies together, and buy from a wholesaler, buy as many bags as you can afford, and you'd be amazed at the volume discount.
I pay $20.40 for a 50# bag of Mazuri if I buy at least 20 bags, $21.90 if I buy at least 10.
I work with another pet store that delivers my fish to me, and we usually purchase the minimum to get the maximum discount every two weeks.
If you find a friend that'll let you tack onto his order, you'll get the discount without having to have a business license or wholesale license. In a lot of cases, the wholesalers are willing to sell even a few bags at more of a "retail" price.
People are out there, just go find them... talk to your local pet store, find out where they get rodents from, chances are, it's a local breeder. I sell rats and mice in my store as well to other pet stores and snake breeders. Most pet stores don't mind the questions, as long as you're not elbowing in for competition.

Sorry, forgot to add... I also use doggy bag for all my mice/rat grow outs. Once I wean a rat, they get rodent diet for the first week in a weaner tub. The next week, when they're moved to a big boy tub, they get 50/50 rodent/doggy bag, and from then on, it's 100% dog food.
Doggy bag, as crappy quality as it is for dogs, is excellent for grow out rodents... 18% protein is good enough even in crowded tubs of grow outs...

You guys are forgetting...Mazuri is 16% protein. Doggy Bag actually has more protein LOL.

I'll take some jerboas and jirds since you breed everything...and some dormice please!!!!

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Originally Posted by suzuki4life

I'll take some jerboas and jirds since you breed everything...and some dormice please!!!!

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Talk about cannibals...
dormice are horrible! I tried them once, never again. That was money well wasted!

I do have a pair of jerboa, but they're impossible to breed, at least I can't. Been over 6 months of nothing.

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Originally Posted by jasbus

Talk about cannibals...
dormice are horrible! I tried them once, never again. That was money well wasted!

I do have a pair of jerboa, but they're impossible to breed, at least I can't. Been over 6 months of nothing.

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let me know when you bore of them...

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Originally Posted by suzuki4life

let me know when you bore of them...

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Have you bred them?
this is my first attempt at these guys..