34 babies gone...

I must have the worst moms in the world. About 1 of every 4 litters gets killed/eaten/smothered/neglected by momma. any reason why? I fed two of the bad moms already, I cant have that goin on. The others are absolutely wonderful, but some are just bad.

Any words of wisdom? I imagine the consensus will be, "keep the good ones, feed the bad ones" but I just wanna double check...

Dane

Mice or rats?

And how are you keeping them? Ratio and size of enclosure.

I believe he keeps rats.
I know you built a rack not too long ago... how big are the tubs, how do you keep them in the tubs? Rather, how many to a tub?

probably over crouded.

I keep 1 mom to her babies, thats all. Rats, that is. I have a 5:1 female:male adult ratio for breeding, then when theyre preggo, I put them in their own single tub by their lonesome. So, it's just the mom and her 8-12 babies. I just found 10 4-week olds dead in their mom's today today...this is getting silly now. They have food and water galore...it's not like they just die, they always have brains and stomachs missing from the mom, too.

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Originally Posted by Danegerous

...it's not like they just die, they always have brains and stomachs missing from the mom, too.

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How often are you re-breeding them once the babies are gone? It sounds like it is a diet issue where the Mom's are killing off the weaker offspring to get the nutrients...which happens more often when you have back-to-back breeding or feed a poor mix of foods as the mom's can't recoop fast enough.

Just a thought...hope it helps.

Once they are preggo, I put them in the seperate tub, then I let them stay with the babies for about 6 weeks until the babies are well weened, then the mom goes back into the breeding tub. So, it will have been about 10 weeks since she was bred. The thing is, this is really my first go round in the cycle, no moms have been rebred yet...

I think 6 weeks is a long time to leave her in with her offspring. Her boys are fertile at 5 weeks.

They are really ready to go at 3 1/2 to 4 weeks. I also give my mothers a very long break. 4 weeks recoup time in a social setting with only females.

Besides that, how are they (pups or weanlings) killed? Rat mothers kill in two different ways. One is where they dispose of weak or dead individuals by just eating and nibbling on them. As if they were eating food or a snack.

The other method is a bite to the spine/ neck with intention of actually culling them. Most often seen being used in older pups.

Have you examined the bodies to see how they were killed? It's common for animals to eat the best parts to get extra nutrition. Not surprised that she would have eaten the brains and stomachs.

See If it was her doing or they died themselves? Another idea could be something pathological in your colony.

If I were you, I would do some investigating into this problem. If it were just aggressive mothers, I would dispose of them. But since this seems to be such a widespread problem makes me think there is something else going on with this colony.

I would give them a last chance, make sure you provide a good diet (Mazuri or Harlan feed), once the babies are 4 weeks old remove them from mom (do not wait until they are 6 weeks) and give mom 1 or 2 weeks rest by herself

Here is a schedule I did for my rats (I generally wean them at 3 weeks except for runts)

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p...ngSchedule.png

If nothing change than the only conclusion is that they are just poor breeders, this happen!

Perhaps it is because you are disrupting your colonies by removing the pregnant females? When I bred rats (gave it up 3 years ago because of hubby), I successfully kept 1.3 groups together at all times and never had moms eatting babies.

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Originally Posted by TripleMoonsExotic

Perhaps it is because you are disrupting your colonies by removing the pregnant females? When I bred rats (gave it up 3 years ago because of hubby), I successfully kept 1.3 groups together at all times and never had moms eatting babies.

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I would hesitate to think this has anything to do with it. From my research and from personal experience mom rats tend to do better by themselves to birth and raise a litter, not worse. All of mine have been very tolerant to being moved around at my want and whim, except when housing males together, they tend to pick on each other. I have a maternity rack though, currently has 10 moms in it, and I have yet to see any cannabilism, and some are on their second litters this way. They won't even eat the occasional dead baby.

That said, I have often had trouble with litters of other rodents being killed/eaten when left in with mom for too long, especially boys. I've been weaning between 3 1/2 and 4 weeks old (thanks to the advice here), although they rarely get to a full 4 weeks with mom unless the litter was very large.

Wean your rats at 21 days exactly and separate males and females, give mom a break with other females and a week or two later put them back with the male.


Hope this help and don't give up.!!