Dead rat

[munding]

last night i found a rat who was 8 weeks old dead, her face was eaten off and the left arm. she was in a tub with 4 other rats. 2 8-week old rats and 2 amonth old rats. i checked and there was plenty of food and water. what could have caused this? freak accident or is it normal? i will no longer raise the 4 rats and just feed them off.

this morning i found another dead rat. different tub. 4 months old. she wasn't mangled or anything. i feed them the same foods that i was feeding them since jan. what could've cause this?

thank you.

[Corrupter]

The only time I had that problem, I was trying to keep too many rats together in a small tank. They were maybe 6 weeks old and 3 ended up getting partially eaten despite plenty of food/water offered.

[munding]

hmm.. but i was keeping 8 of them in that tub. then i removed 3 cos they were ready to breed. then that happend? hmm...

[littleindiangirl]

Were they all females in that tub? I would always seperate after they have been weaned to prevent any fighting amongst the males over the females, and also to prevent pregnancies when they are too young.

It's almost impossible to say why that one died and the other girl the next day, there could be many reasons. With her room mates also taking advantage of the extra nutrients by eating the brain... there's no way to tell how she died.

I would monitor all of your rats closely. Check their eyes and nose for red staining, listen for constant sneezing or snorting like they have a stuffy nose. Also listen for coughing which sometimes sounds like they're chirping.

Rats are very good at hiding sickness because they are preyed on by other animals. If you find some that are sick, listless, not energetic and curious, I would pull them and put them into a hospital tank away from the main colony. Pay them special care and hopefully they can get over it. Or you could pull them and put them down if you think they aren't going to do well.

I think the main problem is just poor genetics. These rats weren't being selectively bred for generations and now have a harder time to thrive. I think it would be best to do some very selective breeding for some time. I know it's hard to do with young rats because you just don't know how they are going to do when they are older. Best bet is to keep the largest, fastest growing and most active young rats for breeders.

When you spend time with the weanlings, you'll quickly get a feel for who's doing the best. I often play with my weaners when I want to hold some back, and I find interaction to be good for all of them from early on.

[frankykeno]

If you are only a generation or so from pet store rats then you'll lose more. Once you're more in control of the breedings, raising your own future breeders from healthy stock, you'll see less losses from just poor genetics and general "crap" rats. You'll still lose the occasional one, it happens but not nearly as often.

Rats will eat a dead cagemate. While it's gross to us, it's sensible to them. Free extra protein and they need to clean up the corpse before it stinks up the place. It's isn't them being nasty, just them being rats (even though it's nasty for us to deal with).

[munding]

hmm one that got eaten, all of them were females.
i will keep an eye on them. yeah, i dont think the people here that sold me those rats from the petshops do any selective breeding here. they usually dont care about those things...
the mom of the girls that died, i got her from one petshop and she was already prego...i will try selecitive breeding.

thank you conniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiee!!!!!

[munding]

If you are only a generation or so from pet store rats then you'll lose more. Once you're more in control of the breedings, raising your own future breeders from healthy stock, you'll see less losses from just poor genetics and general "crap" rats. You'll still lose the occasional one, it happens but not nearly as often.

Rats will eat a dead cagemate. While it's gross to us, it's sensible to them. Free extra protein and they need to clean up the corpse before it stinks up the place. It's isn't them being nasty, just them being rats (even though it's nasty for us to deal with).

oh! i see. so the cagemates of the one that got eaten, i can still breed them? because i got the impression that if they would eat a 2 month old rat, theyd surely eat their pups.

thanks joanna

[littleindiangirl]

If you are only a generation or so from pet store rats then you'll lose more. Once you're more in control of the breedings, raising your own future breeders from healthy stock, you'll see less losses from just poor genetics and general "crap" rats. You'll still lose the occasional one, it happens but not nearly as often.

Rats will eat a dead cagemate. While it's gross to us, it's sensible to them. Free extra protein and they need to clean up the corpse before it stinks up the place. It's isn't them being nasty, just them being rats (even though it's nasty for us to deal with).

This is true. I'm lucky so far that I haven't lost any of my pet store rats from an unknown cause, but I have had to do my share of culling the very sick ones.

[munding]

crap rats. lol... yeah. a pink or two usually dies.

[frankykeno]

oh! i see. so the cagemates of the one that got eaten, i can still breed them? because i got the impression that if they would eat a 2 month old rat, theyd surely eat their pups.

thanks joanna

Let the females get to about 250 grams or around 4.5 to 5 months of age. Good sized, well maturing females will always tend to give you better results when first bred.

I don't think the fact that they cleaned up a dead rat is a particulr reason to believe they'd cannabalize their own young. With any animal though, you always have to watch for that sort of thing and it is normal to see female rats eat stillborn young or cull a runt from the litter. That's just nature doing her job really by again recycling protein (just as the momma rat will eat all the afterbirths to give herself a meal right after birthing).