Mom's who eat their young...

[mykee]

Recently, within the last month or so, I've noticed that at far fewer rats make it to weanling age. The mothers have taken a liking to eating their young. Most of my rats (breeders) pop out 12-18 babies, when the babies are ready to be seperated, there are maybe 4-8 that are left. Nothing has changed in their husbandry, if you will. They get an exclusive diet of Mazuri 6F and have their water changed every second day. They are cleaned every 4 days (colonies of 1.2). The breeding females are only 6-8 months old. I keep two mothers in one rack, away from any non-pregnant females and males. Any ideas why this is happening? Liek I said, nothing has changed in the year + that I have been breeding my own rats. I'm confused....

[BoidKeeper]

I've had in happen once in a while too out of the blue and like you I've been doing it the same way for over a year. No diet change, no cage mate change and one day bang I find a female eating a pinkie. Mind you I've not had it happen to the extream you have but I have had it happen on occasion. The best solution I've found for the problem is to feed the offender to a ball python. Try that it seems to work for me. But really I don't know why they do it but it seems like once they start they continue with every litter so I think it's them not us. So like I said when ever I see one eating a pinkie it's usually her or his last meal.
Cheers,
Trevor

[mykee]

I like your idea Trevor, and initially I did just that, but in the last month, I've probably have most of my 24 breeder females eat a few pinks. It would take a while to replenish the breeding stock if I fed then off every time it happens. I guess I'll just have to do my best to nip it in the bud when I see it. Thanks.

[Oliverian]

Hmm... Thats odd. Do you think mabye that they are being bred too hard, and need more time to recover? They may be eating their young for lack of nutrients, due to lack of recovery time between litters. But hey, who knows? Hope they cut it out soon for you.
-Tammy R

[mykee]

Well, I thought of it all, I have those racks with the food hoppers up top, and every two days, I put a handful of food IN their cages, because I thought the same thing. Didn't make a difference. I also allow the mothers a week off AFTER the weanlings are removed from her, so about 7 weeks between pregnancies, which is far from being overbred. It wouldn't be such a problem if it didn't smell so bad while the moms are feasting down on junior. Thanks though..

[mark129er]

It could just be that the babies are unhealthy. It makes sense for weaklings to be killed as in nature they could put the collective in danger. It could just be natural selection in progress. Or it could be that they are bad mothers and should be fed off. I guess I have really provided no info or advice. I apologize for wasting everyone's time.

[tai_pan1]

Try culling your litters down to 6 or 8 babies a day or two after they are born. The mothers may be having problems producing enough milk, and some of the babies may not be getting enough. Once that happens, mom will eat them.
As a general practice, I started culling all of my mouse litters down to 6 and the ones that are left grow twice as big twice as fast. I can remove them from the moms quicker and I now have plenty of pinks for neonate snakes.

Try it.

[Syst3m]

Try new breeders, sounds like your moms are lousy. If you have your conditions right, mothers should have no problems taking care of 14+ babies, even more so if you have 1.3-1.4 colonies.

When the moms start doing that they aren't fit any more. Feed them off.

[Fangs]

I think that mark129er has a very valid point.
My opinion is that one of the female rats (the dominant one) collects all the babies and tries to keep them all for herself.
The runts if you will then miss out on milk become weak then get eaten.

cheers

[reverendsterlin]

I fed off eaters AND their offspring as they occured when I was breeding prey, I think it resulted in less agressive females by the time all originals had been fed off. seldom did the daughters of non-aggressive females revert to cannabilism.

[Ciddian]

Yup all the right reasons are comming up....I've found my mums will snack on their babies if i haven't conditioned them long enough, if there is a problem with the babies themselves, or if there is something that is bothering them....sometimes it could be the smell of a neighboor oddly enough.
One great thing about culling is that you might need those pups to feed off and the left over pups should get bigger and stronger because they do not have to fight over the milk.
I once had one of my girls stop producing milk so her sister took over the whole litter....she ended up eating the runts simply because a litter of 15+ is insane on a rat.
Also.....having litter after litter is very taxing on their bodies and minds... I dunno if it is me but my females seem to hate having babies lol. That's why it's important to give them a month off to condition. :)
i know i'd freak if i had to have baby after baby....ugh
medopen:
~*Ciddian*~

[Frithrah82]

I know this is kinda older so no ones really thinking about it anymore, but i thought I'd chip in... although precautions are being taken there is probably some chance of mothers sensing the potential danger their babies are in by your posession of snakes or lizards or other large predators, cannibalism can definitely result from fear, if you smell like a snake the mother could be eating the weaker babies that would otherwise be fine because it would be easier for her to take care of just the stronger in that threatening situation. Also I wanted to point out the fact that cannibalism is typically not a sign of an aggressive animal, especially not in rats, mice maybe, it is a natural way for a mother animal to take care of a problem before it affects her whole litter. Aggression in rats comes out when they bite YOU not their young. I've had very sweet mothers kill off sick babies before, it has nothing to do with the disposition of the female.

[mice4you]

Watch the diet. Mazuri foods are not well suited for rodents that are constantly bred. When we used Mazuri solely for our breeders (ICR mice and Sprague Dawley rats) we found the same problems after a while. We would get a few months of breeding and then we would see litters get eaten on a regular basis.

At first we added seeds to the diet. This seemed to help reduce the amount of females that ate their babies. We finally just ended up having our food custom made from a different supplier.

Try adding sunflower and safflower seeds. After a month, you should see a marked difference in the animals mothering instincts.

Remember one thing, rodents are easy to breed however when THEY feel the conditions are not right, they make sure that they do not have to compete with their young for food, water, etc.

[Kimo]

i also just wanted to post somthing i was told a while back when i had my burm and was breeding feeders for her from my vet, Rats have the ability to sence/detect impurities, diseases and disabilities in other rats, ie. a female rat can sence problems in a male rat, and will not mate with it, could be that the mother is just doing the nature thing, "Survival of the fittest" but once again, just what i've been told

Kimo

[Frithrah82]

sensing impurities in young is a very rodent thing to do, its not just something to toss around, it is fact, rats and mice will eat babies if they are sick or disabled, they want their offspring to go make more offspring, if one of the babies is sick then they're feeding it for nothing so they kill it, why waste your energy on something that wont survive and procreate after all? (at least in the non-human animal world).
If adding seeds is what you have to do its what you have to do although safflower is ultimately cancer causing (not that you'll necessarily have the rats long enough to see it occur) and sunflower seeds can be just fatty enough (when given in high quantities) to cause other health issues as well as unsightly and sometimes very gross skin conditions. One food addition that I swear by is good formula dog food especially small breed puppy food for mother rats (however not so good for males), but stay away from cat food as rats do not need taurine and some other trace minerals etc that are in it and may cause other issues. Ultimately a varied diet works best in any situation, lab blocks may be ok for just sustaining an animal but pregnant and nursing mothers do need some supplementation. Try 80% lab blocks and 20% well formulated rat feed (I prefer Kaytee and Reggie Rat formulas, but basically anything with a low corn low peanut low alfalfa content is good). Also consider providing a milk sop right before your females give birth and also afterwards every other day or so (use a peanut butter lid to cut out a whole wheat bread circle, leave the bread in the lid, pour in some whole milk and place it in the cage). Its unusual that rats would be having issues that early in life unless theyre just tired of rearing pups, hope you solve your problems.