Oh, SCARY! Feeder issue

[purplemuffin]

Yikess... So, we are still having issues keeping Maru on f/t rats, there are times when really she will go off food for months and months before we just give in and give her live. She originally had scars from live feeders before, so that's why we try to avoid them. But we've been lazy about it lately and just been giving her live(while monitoring her and getting ready to intervene if there was ever a problem!) We'll start giving her some 'tough love' again soon, I think.

But uh, we had an interesting experience! Bought a small rat from our local exotic pet store. They don't breed their own, and they had just gotten a new shipment in that day. This rat was just like any other rat we had gotten, except it was the first rat we had seen with a black head and white body.

The only reason I mention this is because Maru was absolutely TERRIFIED of the rat! She hissed and hissed at it and musked all over the very confused rodent! She struck once but would not coil. Now both animals were terrified and trying to escape each other. Nathan took Maru out and put her back in her tank. Dropped some rodent food in with the rat and some water and decided to wait to try again later.

It was like three or four days later, decided to try again as she was relaxed and comfortable but was acting very hungry. Took her out, and went to put her in the feeding tub.. Before we had put her in, she panicked and coiled tightly around Nathan's wrist, hissing down at the rat. At this point we are like..Ok, something is UP.

We check maru for injuries, seeing if somehow the rat bit her or something..Nope, no problems, no scratches, no bites.. When she's away from the rodent she calms down and goes back to normal(though a bit jumpy) So we put her back in her tank and let her hide and calm down.

Well, that was yesterday and this morning we found the rat dead. I don't know if he was sick or something.. He had water, food, bedding, he didn't freeze or overheat. It really makes me nervous actually. I don't know if the pet store got a 'bad batch' of rodents or something...


Does anyone have any idea WHY Maru was so violently against eating this rat? Could there have been signs that it was sick that made her nervous? Could it have just been the different colored head? She is prone to being a picky eater. Could the rat's death have been some strange fluke, maybe bad rodent food or something? Either way, we have THOROUGHLY cleaned the feeding tub, gave maru a soak, cleaned her cage, and anything that came in contact with it. I don't know what happened, but I'd like to take as few risks as possible.. Yuck!! What do you guys think about this??