Mystery Deaths

[Jay_Bunny]

Some friends were visiting the other day and we went up to feed the animals since we were going to be staying at our friend's house that night and when all four of us went upstairs, we found Kasper's litter....dead. All but one of hers and her adopted pup were dead. Some she had nibbled on but that was probably because we were just getting around to feeding them for the day. So we put the surviving pups in with Doe who is about to have her 2nd litter. She has been nursing both pups but upon feeding them yesterday, we found the smaller pup dead, probably because Doe isn't producing any milk. The older pup is almost to weaning age and we've gotten him to eat solid food so he's doing fine.

When we found the smaller pup dead, we washed our hands (we have been washing our hands like crazy these past few days with the rats) and went to feed the other rats and found Luck, one of my adult females dead. All cagemates seem fine. Kasper seems fine as well. There are no signs of illness in any of the rats. The temps have been fine in the house, never going above 77 since we've kept the ac on these past few days.

[Wh00h0069]

My condolences. I wish I could be more help, but I have no clue why they die. I also breed rats, and have issues with this sometimes too. Good luck with all your others.

[Jay_Bunny]

Also, there have been no new animals coming into the room where I breed my rats at least for the past 2 months, so I don't think it is the addition of new diseased animals.

[kc261]

Gosh you just aren't having the best luck with your rat colony are you?

I hope you can find out what the problem was.

[Jay_Bunny]

I hope I can too. And no my luck with rats seems to be really bad lately. I have recently switched some of the cages over to a different kind of bedding. Well kind of. Instead of just using the wood pellet bedding, I now give them a layer of wood pellet bedding and then a layer of aspen over that. It makes it softer for them to lay on and the nursing mothers tend to not bury their litters in the pellets but rather with the aspen which is safer.

I don't think the aspen is the cause of the deaths but I only just switched them to this a week or so ago. The dead litter was the first cage to be moved to the aspen and then the trio of boys, and now Doe is on it in preparation of her 2nd litter. Kasper's litter died and then Luck died. Luck and her cagemates had not been switched to the aspen yet, so I'm not sure if that's the reason.

[marmie]

That is so sad and sorry to hear.

My first thought was that you may have brought home a new animal but you already said you didn't.

We didn't have enough rats once and my husband brought some pups to feed but one of the snakes didn't eat it so we put it in with a nursing mother and my entire rat collection died within a couple of weeks. We are pretty sure we got that one sick pup and that was that.

I hope you figure it out and everyone else stays healthy. Good luck!

[blackcrystal22]

Well this could be a result of many things.
It could be that the mother had a genetic disease of some sort which spread to the pups and killed them at a young age. It wouldn't be uncommon.
It could be diet, or they could have contracted some sort of disease.

If they look healthy though they may not have a disease. When I've bred mice and rats, some of the litters die. If it was one of her first 2-3 litters that could have had an effect on her too. Or lack of nutrition.

Good luck with your next litters though.

[Jay_Bunny]

Diet is fine. I feed Mazuri lab block with a homemade mix (Becky's Mix) and occasional treats of fresh fruits and veggies.

This was her first litter and the litter was healthy and active up until the day of death. One pup still lives and is in good health. We plan on keeping him since he is the sole survivor of our two most recent litters. My fiance wants to call him Soulja Boy.

[littleindiangirl]

This may or may not help you out.

http://ratguide.com/breeding/pregnan...itter_loss.php

[Morphie]

I perform a necropsy on all of my rats who die when the cause is unclear. 9 times out of 10 with a female who has suddenly died, the cause was a pyometra (uterus fills with pus). These can either be open (in which case you might notice a discharge that would provide you some warning) or closed (which, aside from a firm lump in the abdomen accompanying strange behavior, are difficult to detect).

As for the loss of your litter - there are lots of possibilities. She could have fell asleep on them and they suffocated, or like was mentioned, they had a genetic flaw. If you know who she paired with, you might try pairing her with someone else.

Sorry for your loss. I hope your bad-luck streak is at its end :/