help

[sk8er4life]

this mornin i woke up and i saw my rats eatin some of the babies it was the mom and another female eatin 2 of thebabies and there were originally 9 till this morning now theres only 5! wuts goin on?is there anything i can do to keep it from happenin again or is it just nature takin its course?

[daniel1983]

Rodents usually eat their offspring as a result of several things(and it is kinda common). If the mother gets nervous or feels threatened they may eat their children as a way of protecting themselves. Also, If food and water supplies are too low the mother may reduce the size of her litter by eating some of the offspring so that the food and water supplies will be adequate. To reduce the chances of this happening, do not disturb the babies until aleast a week has passed and keep more water and food available than usual.

Hope that helps a bit. I would not worry to much sometimes these things happen.

[frankykeno]

How old are the babies? How many adults, counting the mother herself are there in the cage with the babies? How old is the mother and is this her first litter?

Rats are normally excellent mothers but some issues may be causing this. Overcrowding, sudden stress from environment change like very loud, continuing noise, babies that are defective, etc.

I've put a link in here for a page specific to breeding and it does mention some of these issues but something must be up as usually females are good with their babies as are male rats with their young.

Hope you get this sorted out.

~~Jo~~

[daniel1983]

Ya....like Jo said rats are normally excellent mothers. I think the "eating the young" is more common with mice than with rats.