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i just thought id say that 1 week after birth I fed my female rat some waxworms, and over night she ate 7 of her 11 babies -n/p
mitchellaube
Jul 16, 2003 04:18 PM
Replies (5)
Sonya
Jul 16, 2003 07:01 PM
>>.
I am thinking stress or low protein in her diet had more to do with it. Leave her alone except to feed and water and offer her some cat kibble maybe.
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Sonya
tomsey
Jul 16, 2003 08:26 PM
Is this the first time you have fed her something like this other than her regular diet??
I wonder if she enjoyed it so much that she just wasn't satisfied with what you gave her and needed something more?? Unfortunately that happened to be her babies. Sorry.
Just a thought,
Brian
mitchellaube
Jul 18, 2003 12:52 AM
fed them to her. And the babies were absolutely fine that night with fur starting and all. 
DeMak
Jul 16, 2003 09:21 PM
Sometimes pups die and it is natural for the mom to clean up. If they didn't do this in the wild, one dead pup would soon make their den uninhabitable. Perhaps sometimes we are too quick to assume 'she killed them'. The heat may take it's toll this time of year also. I had two fans running today and the little guys and gals were not happy campers. It was 88F inside the animal house.
DeMak
patricia sherman
Jul 17, 2003 09:35 PM
I tend to think that you're correct about the possibility of the babies having died for some reason related to husbandry. It is extremely rare for momma rats to kill their babies after they've bonded with them, I've almost never seen a baby killed by an adult after the baby was over 24 hrs old. Certainly, the feeding of wax worms to the momma strikes me as an unconnected event, and that the timing was coincidental.
>>Sometimes pups die and it is natural for the mom to clean up. If they didn't do this in the wild, one dead pup would soon make their den uninhabitable. Perhaps sometimes we are too quick to assume 'she killed them'. The heat may take it's toll this time of year also. I had two fans running today and the little guys and gals were not happy campers. It was 88F inside the animal house.
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tricia
