Horrific, horrific...

This post is pretty gory, so if blood and guts scare you, I would not read on.
I am completely disgusted right now. I had my breeder male in a large 30-long tank with three females. I have been breeding for over two years with this method, and never had any problems other than minor squabbling when putting in new females.. (I remove females when they're preggo, put in a seperate 10g tank, and leave them til they've finished nursing babies and recuperating..) so now I go into the rat room today and the male is dead. Most of his head is gnawed away to the bone, and there's one female crouched over him eating his brains. The other two females were in on it too but scattered and jumped up when I entered b/c I was feeding them then.. I had just fed them last night and they were all their usual selves, hopping up and active. This was NOT a case of starvation, b/c there was still food leftover from alst night in the corner and scattered around..
They had food, and the water bottle was full.. why would they do this? I promptly put down all three females; I want no cannibals in my colony..
The only thing that might have some bearing, is that the male was getting a little old (about 2 yrs.) Maybe he was dying anyway of natural causes and the girls just went nuts? I don't even know..
Any advice as to why this happened? I was used to there being minor scuffs when I put a new female in with the male for breeding, but this bunch had been together for two weeks.. so now half of my colony is gone.
I am just GLAD that neither of my two females with the babies have had anything wrong happen.. I am going now to seperate those mamas.. I just ahd to type this b/c I am very upset now and shocked.

I would say it is unlikely that the females actually killed him. He very well could have died from other health complications that were not visually obvious, and being opportunistic, the girls just started eating away. I have had a few adults die over the years for reasons unknown to me, and I just find their partially eaten body the next time I check the tub. Don't be too hard on yourself (I guess it's too late not to be hard on the girls :oops: ) it was likely not anything you could've avoided.

-Evan

I was thinking the same thing, Evan - that he likely died of natural causes and the girls began to dispose of him.

Yep I'd agree. Being rats they are just going to eat whatever's handy...they are scavengers after all...plus they probably were just cleaning up so to speak. I'd agree that he likely died and they just did what was instinctive to them as rats. It is "gross" to us but to them, it's just business as usual.

This isnt unheard of. Rats like most rodents will eat their dead. They're scavengers. More than likely your male died of natural causes, and your girls were just cleaning up. They will eat their babies if they feel a must, they will eat their dead (sometimes they will sometimes not) None of mine eat their dead. But I know if a rodent is missing something in their daily diet, like meats, they will feel th eneed to scavenge on their dead commrad.

Now I feel a little bad for putting them down; but I owe my friend a few feeders for her BCIs anyway, so they'll go to good use.. I need to find a new male now. Thanks everyone for your comments; I feel better about it now. I still hav four strong, healthy girls left that are cheering me up a little.

Have Mark do his Tom Araya for you. :D That oughta cheer you up. "This next song is going out to Jen! This is a song called ... PIECE BY PIECE!" (Pun intended) ;)

ah that's too bad you put them down before you posted... could have saved yourself some good breeding girls :(

all the best with getting a new male. i hope he's strong, virile, and good at doing what needs doing :P

I think that this is for the best, I guess. The lot of them were getting pretty old for breeding; the females, I planned on getting another litter out of, and then giving to my friend for her BCI to feed them off. At least one of her snakes eats f/t; so they won't go to waste.
I just want to keep the girls I have, get a new male and some half-grown females from the local pet store (they seperate the sexes, so they will be girls that have never been bred and thus could not have been bred too young) and kind of start fresh. The four girls that I have now are doing fine, but I guess I just have to take what I can from this whole thing and turn it into something positive.

absolutely! :hug:

works out great then really... cause those girls were scheduled for 'eatin' anyways :chew:

Sorry to hear about the ratie Jen, But at two years I'd say he was a gizzer.LOL I think I would have had the same reaction with the females though. Good thing males become sexualy mature very quickly.

I am going to go up to Markheim Pets for my new male. They are the best pet store in Buffalo, and keep their rats sex-seperated and use quality bedding and feed..
I am thinking of getting something a little exotic; maybe a rex or something that has cool, different coloration.. :)

oh ya get a rex... the babies are soooooooooo freakin' adorable!!!

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I'm more disgusted that the females were "punished" for normal behavior by being killed and fed off. I'm really not trying to make you feel bad or anything, but I was more disgusted by that than the rats being cannibalistic.

I know it was all a misunderstanding, but next time I'd ask questions before making any rash decisions that affect living things other than yourself.

That being said, sorry for your loss, I know males are usually especially friendly and nice and I bet you were upset about losing him. I would be if the same thing happened to my older male.

I really don't see it in terms of punishing them, but more like culling them out of the colony. If he did have some sort of disease that killed him, I did not want to keep rats that had fed off of him, no matter who would advise me that it was OK. It'd be too dangerous to the rest of the colony; it just seems odd that he would just drop dead with no reason behind it.. I am not even using them as feeders or giving them to my friend for her BCI as I usually do with old breeders.. not worth the risk. People everywhere feed-off and put down their nasty breeders b/c of their attitude; I see this as nothing different. It is what I do with my retired breeders anyway. I keep them in the same manner that people farm beefer cattle; you don't see them keeping their retired breeders as pets. I don't view the rats as pets, although my new male is breaking that mold.
Now I kept what was left of his body; I plan on getting it to the vet ASAP for a necropsy.

Thanks for the clarification, what I said was what I got out of the tone of your first post.

OK; glad that I could clarify things. :)