Eating your own children

One of my female rats has eaten her whole litter twice in a row... What would make her do that?

I have a 1.2 trio of rats set up in a 20 long tank, and I do not take the females out when they give birth. The other female raises her pups fine, but this other one always eats them when they are still in pinky stage.

Next time I see that she is prego, I am planning on putting her in her own tank to give birth, I hope that helps, or that I can get some advice that will. If not... well... I have a Borneo STP that would like to meet her.

Sometimes rats that are bred too young the first time have trouble learning how to take care of their babies.. sometimes they eat them, or don't feed them, or whatever. Other rats just make bad moms and are better off being fed off.

Also if the mother rat feels threatened or stressed, they sometimes eat their babies.

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Originally Posted by Shelby

Sometimes rats that are bred too young the first time have trouble learning how to take care of their babies.. sometimes they eat them, or don't feed them, or whatever. Other rats just make bad moms and are better off being fed off.

Also if the mother rat feels threatened or stressed, they sometimes eat their babies.

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what are you feeding the mother? if they are not getting enough they will eat their young for food

My rats always have a supply of Mazuri lab block available. I don't think it's a hunger issue. Being bred too young is a possibility on that rat.

I try not to eat my own children

Well for future reference the females should be around 4 months old at least before they are bred. Mothering skills may be genetic too... so if you get a bad mom rat you may not want to try any of her sisters.

New mom rats often make mistakes.. it's a good idea to give them one or two chances (litters) before you feed them off.

as others have said it happens sometimes with new mothers . i always seperate my preggo females to their own cage to give birth and raise their babies . this IMHO not only reduces the stress on them , it also allows my to give them a week or 2 to recuperate after weening the babies before being bred again by the males . if i have a mother that eats her babies more than once i feed her off and start with a new female to replace her .

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Originally Posted by Rapture

One of my female rats has eaten her whole litter twice in a row... What would make her do that?

I have a 1.2 trio of rats set up in a 20 long tank, and I do not take the females out when they give birth. The other female raises her pups fine, but this other one always eats them when they are still in pinky stage.

Next time I see that she is prego, I am planning on putting her in her own tank to give birth, I hope that helps, or that I can get some advice that will. If not... well... I have a Borneo STP that would like to meet her.

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I take every female out of the community breeding cage when i notice they are getting close to having the babies(i have it down to 24hrs before the bare the babies:) ).I place each female in a 10gl tank and they are kept their until the babies reach the size i need.Of course the larger rodent breeders are unable to do this for obvious reasons.I run 14 females at a time and 2 males.Since my ball pythons have shut down eating now i cleared out my breeder rodents and have started a new group that will produce babies just about the right time next spring.If that was one of my females she would not get a third chance.Sorry to be blunt but why waste the time and food if she more then likely will be fed off.

I am going to give her a chance outside of the trio to take care of her babies.

good luck with her .

im just going to give my opinion and say its wrong to eat your children, yeah they might be a pain sometimes but thats what you have to deal with when your a parent

A 20 long with three adults and one or two litters of baby rats may be just way too overcrowded and causing this female to turn on her litter and destroy them. Personally I remove all females as soon as they are pear shaped from the big breeding tub and pop them in individual 10 gallon tanks (I generally have 5 or 6 tanks running with females/litters of various ages). I've not had a female do anything more than culling one or two runts from the litter at or very shortly after birth.

Try removing this female to a seperate 10 gallon, give her lots of bedding and some strips from an old telephone book and leave her be with lots of food and water. See if the privacy and lack of stress affect her mothering skills. If she continues to turn on her litter, then feed her off and I personally would not keep any of her offspring as future breeders as breeding/mothering skills seem to be somewhat genetic in rats. I had one female suddenly go rogue and start killing off her almost pup aged babies. She also became crazy mean with Mike and I and was biting nearly to the bone if we approached her even to feed/water her enclosure (she'd always been nippy but she became dangerous to work with). In that case we did put her down and fed off all her offspring as we were never sure what caused her to suddenly turn so vicious.

She may well be reacting to the small space or being dominated by the other female rat (females can just as territorial and dominating to each other than males are, sometimes far worse actually).

So do you think the 20 long is too small for the adults only, or adults plus babies?

Probably just a bit too small for three adults and one or two litters really. Rats are busy creatures and do need a fair bit of space in my opinion, especially the bigger adults. Some of my adults are quite huge rats (huge bodied not fat).

Rats do tend to get obese and unhealthy, tempermental and territorial when overcrowded in a tank that's a bit too small for their current numbers. I know lots of folks leave their breeding females in communal setups but personally I've just never had that much success with it so I pull mine to 10 gallon tanks until they wean the litter. Especially with a female though that's turned on litters like this, I'd certainly give her one more shot in a private maternity tank with little stress. See how she goes, she eats them again, I'd cull her. She may be fine though alone with her litter. You won't know till you try and see what happens.