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Over half of the litter dead.
Hello,
My first posy here and unfortunately it's a sad one. This mother most likely isn't a first time mom. She had 5 babies alive and 7 dead by the time I found the litter. Can anyone think of a reason why?
Last edited by Christopherreptile; 04-03-2023 at 10:54 PM.
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Since you don't know the history, I'm assuming this might be the reason her previous owner didn't keep her- age or other factors that negatively affected her reproduction. Not every animal (or human, for that matter) reproduce successfully- sorry this didn't work out better. Were the babies undersized? Any visible defects? (I'm assuming they had no injuries from the mom?) Was the rat fed well? What about handling &/or stress? Fighting with other rats? (kept alone? or with others?)
Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.
Eric Hoffer (1902 - 1983)
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The Following User Says Thank You to Bogertophis For This Useful Post:
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Re: Over half of the litter dead.
Originally Posted by Christopherreptile
This mother most likely isn't a first time mom. She had 5 babies alive and 7 dead by the time I found the litter. Can anyone think of a reason why?
First 5 came out fine, #6 got stuck in the birthing canal and resulted in the remainder being born deceased.
Sometimes this is bad luck, sometimes this is due to the female being overweight and/or old.
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The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Lord Sorril For This Useful Post:
Bogertophis (04-03-2023),Homebody (04-04-2023)
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Rats and mice are actually highly prone to dystocia/difficult labors. So as mentioned by Sorril, one getting stuck in the canal could have caused this for sure.
I actually just had to separate a first time breeder female out for what I thought was just a low birth rate at first, but when I checked back in with her the next day, she had eaten all her babies. The female that had been housed with her dropped 16 healthy babies, so *shrug*. She'll be culled from the breeding group because I don't want the possibility of that trait continuing.
Sometimes we really don't have a reason why they end up as they do.
For the best production for breeding, you ideally want to shuffle the male between groups of females. For the moms, give them a week or two to recover after taking away the weaned litter. The faster she gets back into breeding, the more likely she'll be to have a lower production or issues with the pregnancy.
I cycle one male in a 5 tier rack. Every two weeks he gets shuffled to a new row. That gives my girls a little time to fatten back up a bit before they get bred again.
Last edited by Armiyana; 04-03-2023 at 11:42 PM.
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The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Armiyana For This Useful Post:
Bogertophis (04-03-2023),Homebody (04-04-2023)
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Re: Over half of the litter dead.
Interesting, thanks for the help, I'm trying to figure out how to insert an image, one of the babies does look sort of deformed. I feed rodent block with "rat mix" (sunflower seeds, corn, etc) mixed in the bedding every change. I've had aprx 8 other females give healthy litters ~8 pups several times. The blocked canal makes sense. An interesting behavior I noticed was that she was "stealing" almost fully weaned pups from her roommates litter she had been living with for weeks before the birth. I keep no more than 3 females per cement tub and 1 male to cycle through them
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Re: Over half of the litter dead.
Originally Posted by Christopherreptile
Interesting, thanks for the help, I'm trying to figure out how to insert an image, one of the babies does look sort of deformed. I feed rodent block with "rat mix" (sunflower seeds, corn, etc) mixed in the bedding every change. I've had aprx 8 other females give healthy litters ~8 pups several times. The blocked canal makes sense. An interesting behavior I noticed was that she was "stealing" almost fully weaned pups from her roommates litter she had been living with for weeks before the birth. I keep no more than 3 females per cement tub and 1 male to cycle through them
Babies get injured, even killed, when moms fight over them- their fragile bodies aren't designed for "tug-o-war". I'd recommend no more than 2 females kept together to minimize that, & be ready to separate them if they don't work out- some are great together, but not all. Baby-stealing is common.
Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.
Eric Hoffer (1902 - 1983)
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