Baby Troubles....

[Reptilian]

Well I guess it could be called that....


I have a trio of rat (1.2.0). This is each Emma's and Ruby's 5th litter. I leave the babies with their moms for 3-4 days (it's the size i need). Emma is good about caring for her babies and all previous litters survived until I needed the pinks at a certain size. Ruby on the other hand has eaten all of her litters.

Well three days ago...Emma had a litter of 14 and Ruby had a litter of 8. By the second day the total amount of babies dropped to 9. Today there is one left.

I give them fresh veggies and stale bread (with their normal mix), along with making sure water bottles are full with fresh water.

Both rats when back and forth thru out the day 'exchanging' babies. Could Ruby be eating all of them since Emma doesn't have a history of eating her babies? I guess it would be a good idea to invest in maturnity tanks.

A friend suggested leaving two or three babies with the mom so the mom knows how to raise the young. Just sell the weanlings off.

I guess I don't really have a question, just more of thinking outloud....if anyone has any input that would be great.

[catawhat75]

My first thought would be to feed off Ruby if she consistently eats her young and find another female.

[littleindiangirl]

yea seriously, good bye ruby! Hello newbie!

[littleindiangirl]

But seriously, How often are you checking on the females? Do you always touch rubies new babies? The females are weird, she must not feel safe, and that's why she is consistently eating her young.

Is ruby comfortable around you? OR is she really shy, or you dont interact with her much?

Just look for underlying reasons that make ruby so upset. Maybe she does NOT like your other female, and just separating them will be the trick.
Like i said, just see why she's not feeling safe, and try to make her comfortable.

[Reptilian]

Ruby is very out going. She loves to be held and will jump into my arms just to go for a ride. So I don't think it's a comfort thing with me. Her and Emma get a long well, Emma is the shy one, doens't like to be held or petted and waits to come out to play. If it was a comforte thing I'd expect it to be with her.

I'll work on getting maturinity tanks and seperating them. Ruby stole the last baby and ate it...

Ruby is a great pet and I don't really want to put her down. I am going to call the vet and see about spaying her. Then I'll get a new female so I can continue with my breedings.

[Fearless]

I would try to seperate them when they are about to give birth. Realize they are animals and even the smallest thing can throw there routine into chaos. My first breeder rat ever had a nice litter of 13 when i first got her the next was about the same but she ate all but like 5. The only thing left were males and at that time i was extremely female heavy on my rat ratio so think that was her way of giving more males the chance to survive but none of the females. Introduced a couple more males into my growing rat collection and this last litter was 16 and has been the ideal mother since. So feeding her off is definately an option but not necessarily the only answer. I would give her one more chance by herself in a maturnity tub before i would give up on her.

[Reptilian]

Thanks.

I just called the vet, they see rats but don't spay/neuter them. I am trying to figure out away to add one more female, but seperate my male. And breed that way, placing a female in with the male when I am low on feeders. This will give all of them a break, I can determine easier who give's birth when and still seperate in maturnity tanks.

My question is since rats are so social what about my male? I don't want him to be lonely and if I get two males I don't want them fighting. I have only a one bedroom apartment and all the animals are in the closet. I could put a male into the female cage then, but what about Ruby, I dont' think it would be a good idea her getting pregant again.

*sigh*

I want to keep it down to as least amount of cages as possible. Maturnity tanks will be tub setups. So what 1 cage for my male and one cage for my females?

[frankykeno]

Okay Layna how about this as a solution. You can pick up this rack as pictured pretty much anywhere. Walmart for instance has them for under $20.00. They snap together, no tools needed...I've had mine for over 2 years now in constant service in the rat room and it's as sturdy as the day I bought it. It has a very small "footprint" so would be perfect for you. It's dimensions are 33.5 wide x 14 deep x 55 high (about 68 high including the top tank).

This is one way to use it as a purely maternity "rack".....



But you could use it like this (my original setup for a small colony)....



The bottom cage is the males permanent home, girls cycle in and out with him. When he wasn't busy with a female we either gave him a spare male wean for company or just gave him more daily attention from us.

The 10 gallon above was my maternity tub (I could put two side by side if needed). The two bins above were for male and female weans but you could easily change this up for your own needs since it doesn't sound as if you need bigger sizes.

I would retire Ruby to companion rat only status and not allow her anywhere near young rats. Only with the females she gets along with. Watch introducing a new female in case she goes after it. I wouldn't get a really small one just in case and really watch them at first.

I don't believe this is from her being hungry, or mean natured or you touching her young. It's a bad habit she formed for some reason and now can't break it. As long as she's fine with you and not nippy to the other adults, she'll do fine as a pet and cage companion. It's not likely related to you touching her young. I've handled every rat born in our colony and that's into the hundreds by now if not more. I've never triggerd a mother to turn on her young and from what I know it's not common in rats (in mice, yes...not so much in rats). I would think this is just an abberrant behaviour and indicates she's unsuitable as a breeder female.

Hope this helps.

[Flagg]

Eating the babies could be caused by stress, lack of protein in their diet, insufficient food or water, overcrowding...

[littleindiangirl]

Here's a site I found really interesting, it relates to this topic that pops up pretty often of infanticide.
http://www.ratbehavior.org/CommunalNesting.htm
http://www.ratbehavior.org/infanticide.htm
Why commit infanticide? Infanticide may be committed for a variety of reasons. Many of these reasons indicate that infanticide may be adaptive to the killer. Animals may commit infanticide in order to:

* gain a food resource by consuming the young (the predation hypothesis).
* gain increased access to physical resources like food, nesting sites, or space (the resource competition hypothesis).
* avoid adopting and providing providing care to unrelated offpsring (the adoption avoidance hypothesis).
* bias the sex ratio of the litter
* Adult males may kill a female's young in order to increase his own chances of mating (the sexual selection hypothesis).
* Lastly, infanticide may be neutral or maladaptive (pathological) and may be the product of selection for another type of behavior like aggression, or may be an accident, or may be the result of disturbances in the physical or social environment (see Ebensperger 1998 for re