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  1. #1
    BPnet Veteran Aedryan Methyus's Avatar
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    Mother Eating Babies...

    So, last week I checked in on my rats and noticed that one of them had one single baby. I figured she had probably just started giving birth, so I left her alone. About 24 hours later I checked in on them again and there was still just one single baby and I noticed there seemed to be a few drops of blood and a couple baby rat parts (perhaps a couple little feet) laying in the tub , so I pulled the mother and baby out and put them in their own tub. The mother was taking good care of the baby for a few days then when I checked in on them a couple of days ago the baby was nowhere to be found. So, i'm guessing she must have eaten it. Is this something she will keep doing if I keep breeding her? If so, one of my Boas or Bloods would enjoy her...

  2. #2
    Telling it like it is! Stewart_Reptiles's Avatar
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    Deending on the age I would give her another try there could be some issues which may be on her part or maybe not.

    Make sure she has access to food that meets her need and fresh water, if you have a watering system make sure the valve is working properly.

    If both those needs are met, you can be dealing with either a bad or inexperienced mother, a mother that culled her babies because of milk production issues, the babies could have died and she was just cleaning up.

    If you house the animal communally when birthing females may have fight over the babies killing them which is why I generally recommend to have individual birthing tubs until the babies are 5 to 7 days old.
    Deborah Stewart


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  4. #3
    Bogertophis's Avatar
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    I've bred LOTS of rats, & rat-mom's eating their babies is very unusual. What are you feeding her? Reproduction takes a LOT out of mom-rats & for best results,
    you should feed a professional quality rodent chow. It also never hurts to supplement their diet with other things too (piece of hard-boiled egg, kale, even bones
    from poultry or meat...& no, they won't choke on chicken bones. Also nuts...let them lick out your "empty" peanut butter jar before your recycle it, & bits of other
    fruit & veggies...scraps that aren't bad spots or spoiled but less-than-perfect that you might not want. Example- I like kale in salads or cooked, but the stems are
    perfect for rodents to chew on, not so much my thing...)

    Is this her first time breeding? (I'm betting it is...they naturally eat the afterbirth as they clean up the babies, and some don't know when to quit...if they're hungry
    & needing more protein & quality food, she may be unable to nurse them anyway.) Sometimes rodents give birth to babies that aren't alive or are weak from other
    issues...that may be the case here, she may "know something you don't". She may or may not do this again, and presumably rats learn from each other too: I've
    mostly bred rats in trios (1.2) and most females will help each other take care of babies, though some have to be separated because they fight over them. If there
    are too many rats per cage (more than 3) or if it's crowded (cage too small), that also causes failures like this. They cannot take care of babies in a chaotic cage.

    Just remember: garbage in, garbage out. Rats need a balanced diet much like we do...feed them well for best results.

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  6. #4
    BPnet Senior Member Lord Sorril's Avatar
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    Re: Mother Eating Babies...

    Breeder female rats will often stop producing milk if there are only one or two offspring to start off=conservation of energy.
    *.* TNTC

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  8. #5
    BPnet Veteran Aedryan Methyus's Avatar
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    Re: Mother Eating Babies...

    Quote Originally Posted by Deborah View Post
    Deending on the age I would give her another try there could be some issues which may be on her part or maybe not.

    Make sure she has access to food that meets her need and fresh water, if you have a watering system make sure the valve is working properly.

    If both those needs are met, you can be dealing with either a bad or inexperienced mother, a mother that culled her babies because of milk production issues, the babies could have died and she was just cleaning up.

    If you house the animal communally when birthing females may have fight over the babies killing them which is why I generally recommend to have individual birthing tubs until the babies are 5 to 7 days old.
    Thank you, Deborah. I will give her one more chance. I've been leaving pregnant mothers in with the other 3 females + 1 male until the babies are born then putting the mothers and babies in a tub by themselves...

    Quote Originally Posted by Bogertophis View Post
    I've bred LOTS of rats, & rat-mom's eating their babies is very unusual. What are you feeding her? Reproduction takes a LOT out of mom-rats & for best results,
    you should feed a professional quality rodent chow. It also never hurts to supplement their diet with other things too (piece of hard-boiled egg, kale, even bones
    from poultry or meat...& no, they won't choke on chicken bones. Also nuts...let them lick out your "empty" peanut butter jar before your recycle it, & bits of other
    fruit & veggies...scraps that aren't bad spots or spoiled but less-than-perfect that you might not want. Example- I like kale in salads or cooked, but the stems are
    perfect for rodents to chew on, not so much my thing...)

    Is this her first time breeding? (I'm betting it is...they naturally eat the afterbirth as they clean up the babies, and some don't know when to quit...if they're hungry
    & needing more protein & quality food, she may be unable to nurse them anyway.) Sometimes rodents give birth to babies that aren't alive or are weak from other
    issues...that may be the case here, she may "know something you don't". She may or may not do this again, and presumably rats learn from each other too: I've
    mostly bred rats in trios (1.2) and most females will help each other take care of babies, though some have to be separated because they fight over them. If there
    are too many rats per cage (more than 3) or if it's crowded (cage too small), that also causes failures like this. They cannot take care of babies in a chaotic cage.

    Just remember: garbage in, garbage out. Rats need a balanced diet much like we do...feed them well for best results.
    Thank you for your reply, Bogertophis. I have been feeding my rats Doggy Bag dog food and they seem to be doing good on it. Another one of my females gave birth to 10 babies right around the same time this happened and the mother and babies are still doing great. I have been doing a 4 female to 1 male ratio, so there are only 5 rats per tub. These are both young rats and it was their first time giving birth...

  9. #6
    Bogertophis's Avatar
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    Rats WILL eat anything, but should NOT be fed dog food!!! It is balanced for dogs, NOT rats, & most dog food has additives (like red dyes etc.) that can
    harm both the rodents & especially the ultimate consumer, your snakes, because their bodies cannot neutralize/expel some chemicals and they build up.

    Dogs make their own vitamin C, for example...so they don't need to consume it. Rats need a balanced diet similar to our own.

    So...don't say no one warned you... And just because others do it doesn't make it right or even okay.

    And by the way...this is one of the reasons I've been breeding my own rodents for decades...I really don't trust all rodent-breeders not to take
    the cheap way out & feed bad things (like dog food) to their rats & mice.
    Last edited by Bogertophis; 09-10-2018 at 12:49 PM.

  10. #7
    Telling it like it is! Stewart_Reptiles's Avatar
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    Re: Mother Eating Babies...

    Quote Originally Posted by Bogertophis View Post
    Rats WILL eat anything, but should NOT be fed dog food!!! It is balanced for dogs, NOT rats, and most dog food has additives (like red dyes etc.) that can harm
    both the rats and the ultimate consumer, your snakes, because their bodies cannot neutralize/expel some chemicals & they build up.
    So...don't say no one warned you... And just because others do it doesn't make it right or even okay.
    I disagree with part of it.

    The food used actually contains no red dye and is better than some food made for Mice and rats

    Here is a little history on my breeding experience.

    I have been breeding feeder since 2007 and I produce a few THOUSANDS a year both mice and rats, when I first start like everyone I use Mazuri for Feeder Breeder.

    One of the things that bothered me the most is that the rat of rats and mice developing mammary tumors was high in my opinion, there was not a week that would go by without me having to retire some females, so I did some research and I research Doggy Bag from tractor supply (I am big on reading labels) and while I would not feed it to my dogs it does great for feeders.

    I did not jump blindly I did a side by side comparison 1 rack on mazuri for a year 1 rack on Doggy bag for a year, I recorded everything for overall appearance, to litter size to mammary tumor. I was surprise that nothing was affected except for mammary tumors, they just rarely happened in the rack fed with doggy bag.

    After a year I made the switch completely, and I rarely see tumors in rats anymore and they become even more rare in my mice colony.

    Sometimes you just got to take a leap of faith and experience on your own.
    Deborah Stewart


  11. #8
    Bogertophis's Avatar
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    I have lots of experience breeding rodents (rats, mice, hamsters) and I've not seen a significant problem with mammary tumors.

    I agree with "seeing for yourself" & I'm a label-reader too...I'm glad that Doggy Bag appears to work for you. That apparently is not the case for everyone...I just read
    some views to the contrary as well as some that agree with you. https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...-feed-for-rats

    I found this article below (from DogFoodAdvisor) to be a very interesting read (I have no prior familiarity with Doggy Bag- this thread is the first I've heard of it) but I'll
    keep breeding rodents my way, thank you.

    Again...dogs need different nutrients than rats or mice or humans...dog food is meant for dogs. I wouldn't feed Doggy Bag to my dogs either, at least we agree on that.

    https://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/dog-f...ews/doggy-bag/

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