I noticed some strange occurrence this last month that happened once with my breeder rats and once with my mice colony.
With the rats I separate the pregnant females. This month I had 3 give birth at once, and a fourth pregnant female rat was the last that was going to give birth and was in the same cage. I notice that she would sit near the rat pups and have them either nurse or at least try to nurse – she didn’t move she just lay there and let the little ones do their thing. She would sit round the clock near the pups. (not sure if she was carrying milk from an earlier birth)
At the end she was near found dead lying near the babies, still pregnant but lost a lot of weight and muscle mass. Other than the belly where the babies where she was thin as she could possibly be, pregnant and never gave birth. I put her out of her misery and didn’t feed her to anything, as I was alarmed of possible disease. The same thing occurred with a female mouse – she had other pinkies nurse her constantly…and was found dead and pregnant—seemingly nursed to death. Has anyone seen this before? My guess is with the loss of vitamins due to the pregnancy with the combination of being nursed on round the clock…they couldn’t sustain themselves to survive. But that is a guess. For now I’m serpararating a little more often if I see similar behavior. So again..as strange as this question seems….
Is it possible for a pregnant female rodent to get nursed to death by babies that are not hers – while she is carrying milk and is pregnant? Both female rat and mice where at the latest stages of pregnancy.
