Lost Half the Litter

[frankykeno]

Found a sad and odd thing this morning. Alita, one of our experienced rats, who birthed a litter of 10 had buried half her litter. They were all dead, not a mark on them and not looking in any way sickly other than they would be considered slightly smaller than the survivors. I found them all buried very deeply down in the bedding. We've noticed Alita acting odd with this litter, very nervous and hyper (not her usual way to manage her litter) and she birthed some really big litters. 10 is nothing for Alita to manage.

I'm wondering if she was running out of milk or something so culled out half her litter? The remaining live ones look great...nice big chubby fuzzies. Just to be safe we've removed the survivors and fostered them with another experienced female rat who has fuzzies the same age. Alita's officially retired now (this was to be her last litter anyways) but I'm quite surprised. I've never seen this before in our colony where I've found viable fuzzies suddenly dead and buried like this.

Any ideas folks?

Alita is now caged in with HoneyChild our other retiree female and some other females that are resting between litters. She seems absolutely fine and I'm clueless why she would have lost or destroyed half her litter at the fuzzy stage.

[joepythons]

Found a sad and odd thing this morning. Alita, one of our experienced rats, who birthed a litter of 10 had buried half her litter. They were all dead, not a mark on them and not looking in any way sickly other than they would be considered slightly smaller than the survivors. I found them all buried very deeply down in the bedding. We've noticed Alita acting odd with this litter, very nervous and hyper (not her usual way to manage her litter) and she birthed some really big litters. 10 is nothing for Alita to manage.

I'm wondering if she was running out of milk or something so culled out half her litter? The remaining live ones look great...nice big chubby fuzzies. Just to be safe we've removed the survivors and fostered them with another experienced female rat who has fuzzies the same age. Alita's officially retired now (this was to be her last litter anyways) but I'm quite surprised. I've never seen this before in our colony where I've found viable fuzzies suddenly dead and buried like this.

Any ideas folks?

Alita is now caged in with HoneyChild our other retiree female and some other females that are resting between litters. She seems absolutely fine and I'm clueless why she would have lost or destroyed half her litter at the fuzzy stage.

Whoa they were in the fuzzy stage before they died? That is totaly weird . I have never heard of or dealt with something like this at that stage dieing off.

[frankykeno]

I know Joe, it's very odd. I've never seen this before. These were perfectly normal pinks, perfectly normal fuzzies and all alive yesterday. Today I go to feed and 1/2 the litter is dead...some still warm. The only "clues" seem to be that Alita has been acting freaky, highly nervous and not as glued to her litter as she normally is...obviously not nursing as much as usual, her teats are actually not even visible as they should be on a female rat nursing 10 offspring. The ones that died and were buried deep in the bedding were the smaller ones, only the larger ones survived.

I think this is a case of Alita being older than I know (remember I found her as a hugely pregnant adult female in a pet store bin full of adult male rats) so I've no real idea of her age. I think she went dry or was going dry which would explain her rejecting part of her litter for the ones that perhaps were more hardy. I'm not sure how the dead ones actually died, there are no teeth marks on them, they are not starved looking, they look to be healthy sleeping fuzzies, but of course are not. They simply seem to have been smothered or something like that. Every single one was buried as deep as she could put them and placed away from the living ones. I'm going to keep a very close eye on the surviving fuzzies and see if they do okay with the foster female and her fuzzies.

[joepythons]

I know Joe, it's very odd. I've never seen this before. These were perfectly normal pinks, perfectly normal fuzzies and all alive yesterday. Today I go to feed and 1/2 the litter is dead...some still warm. The only "clues" seem to be that Alita has been acting freaky, highly nervous and not as glued to her litter as she normally is...obviously not nursing as much as usual, her teats are actually not even visible as they should be on a female rat nursing 10 offspring. The ones that died and were buried deep in the bedding were the smaller ones, only the larger ones survived.

I think this is a case of Alita being older than I know (remember I found her as a hugely pregnant adult female in a pet store bin full of adult male rats) so I've no real idea of her age. I think she went dry or was going dry which would explain her rejecting part of her litter for the ones that perhaps were more hardy. I'm not sure how the dead ones actually died, there are no teeth marks on them, they are not starved looking, they look to be healthy sleeping fuzzies, but of course are not. They simply seem to have been smothered or something like that. Every single one was buried as deep as she could put them and placed away from the living ones. I'm going to keep a very close eye on the surviving fuzzies and see if they do okay with the foster female and her fuzzies.

I bet thats what happened then. If the teats were barely visible then she closed up producing milk. To bad you did not discover this in enough time to save them all . I guess thats nature.