Mother killed five, five week old babies.. what happened?

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Tarah

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 15, 2009
Messages
2,081
Location
Nova Scotia, Canada
I'm going to warn you (especially to AlwaysLove, and cherrylips.) this thread is very graphic and upsetting, but i need to know what may have happened... I'll put the more graphic statements in a spoiler, so if you don't want to read it you don't have to...

Joey opened the cage to find four babies still alive, and five of them killed [spoiler:3aeqel1m]all he found in the cage was balls of fur and bones[/spoiler:3aeqel1m] they had been fine their whole lives, and Molly had taken care of them.

This was so unexpected... i recieved the phone call at 4 a.m. this morning with Joey freaking out and telling me what happened.

Molly has been seperated from the babies as of this morning to avoid anymore tragedies. She was supposed to be going to a home with AlwaysLove (who's two girls survived) but she won't be living with any of the babies anymore. She is going to the vet on Monday to get their opinions of what happened and if she is suitable to live with other rats, but we don't know what will happen with her and her situation.

I need to know... this can't be normal. To raise them since birth and suddenly turn around and murder them.

Edit: Molly was fed, there was plently of food and water in her cage, and she has shown no signs of agression towards them.
 
OMG Tarah, I can't imagine what your feeling right now. Hopefully you will get some answers.
 
I have no answers at all..... I have no idea. I have seen many animals with sick and deformed babies and they did not try and kill them so to have a mother do this to seemingly healthy 5 week old babies just blows my mind.
How very terrible.
 
Where there any other adults in the cage? Any males nearby?

It's very upsetting and shocking when these things happen. It's usually left a mystery but there could be contributing factors....

1. Are we positive mom killed them and not the babies died on their own?
2. It is instinct to clean up the bodies by adults.
3. Mom could have gone into heat and the babies were after her, this could have triggered a neurosis and she turned on them.

How are the remaining babies? Are they all girls? Any marks on them?
 
I would say its much more likely a cleanup by mom after the pups died. They have no imperative to kill almost weaned pups, but do have the instinctual imperative to clean up bodies, even adult rats will do this to other cagemates. This is because of the smell attracting predators to the colony.

One small question, how big was the cage?
 
sorry to be blunt, but what are the chances of FIVE babies dropping down dead all at the same time, and them mum 'cleaning up'?

seems a bit o_O

sorry youve had to go through this Tarah and everyone else
 
the rescues in the martitimes and in ontario are a bad mess of genetics. I could see this happening sadly enough. We cannot see deep inside their bodies to see the physiological mess going on. These rats do not survive. Four did, and if it was a killing spree they would all be dead.
 
ryelle said:
sorry to be blunt, but what are the chances of FIVE babies dropping down dead all at the same time, and them mum 'cleaning up'?

seems a bit o_O

sorry youve had to go through this Tarah and everyone else
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, Tarah's rescue babies have had a history of getting the short end of the genetic stick. This is absolutely no one's fault in any way, but it does mean that I might not be entirely surprised if it was the case. Also, some sort of illness going through the colony that other rats had no problem fending off could potentially wipe out wee ones with a compromised immune system. We can't say what exactly was going on inside those babies, and the fact that they were completely disposed of would also make me think that they were just being cleaned up, and not something terribly sinister.

I am really really sorry Tarah, in either case. And poor Joey, having to find them :(
 
Moon said:
ryelle said:
sorry to be blunt, but what are the chances of FIVE babies dropping down dead all at the same time, and them mum 'cleaning up'?

seems a bit o_O

sorry youve had to go through this Tarah and everyone else
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, Tarah's rescue babies have had a history of getting the short end of the genetic stick. This is absolutely no one's fault in any way, but it does mean that I might not be entirely surprised if it was the case. Also, some sort of illness going through the colony that other rats had no problem fending off could potentially wipe out wee ones with a compromised immune system. We can't say what exactly was going on inside those babies, and the fact that they were completely disposed of would also make me think that they were just being cleaned up, and not something terribly sinister.

I am really really sorry Tarah, in either case. And poor Joey, having to find them :(
Click to expand...

Yeah, Moons right. Luna had pups who never grew very big, and a few past away. A lot of people here suspected a heart condition. But we never breed purposely, so we don't know the genetics. Hershey's litter was the only ones that were perfect out of the three litters we've had.

The cage was a super pet "my first deluxe home" knock-off. It had three levels, a hut, a tube, food dish and a hammock in it.

Joey said when he found them they were all hiding up in the tiny hammock with Molly down on the bottom level. She always seemed a little short with them..

Is it possible that Molly killed them and the young ones "cleaned-up"?
 
Okay, thanks Jo.
I really don't know what happened, i don't see how five could have dropped dead at the same time.

They seemed so healthy... bouncing and popcorning around, taking treats and eating food. Drinking normally, playing... I don't see them just dying..
 
rats do it all the time sadly. :( Five at once is a lot but as you said yourself, the genetics involved could be horrendous. :/

I take it you've separated the remaining 4 by now?
 
But if they have bad/unknown genetics isn't it possible that the mom killed them? Couldn't she have killed them as a result of some behavior mutation from bad genetics?

No matter what the cause, it was a terrible thing to happen. I'm so sorry for everyone involved.
 
They died of megacolon...

I got home today and got to take a look at the babies. Another was dead, and another wasn't doing so well.

There was high white in their genetics (molly and three babies were high whites) so that is my conclusion.

They were very bloated in the stomachs, and almost mis-shaped (it's the best word i can think of right now)

Now I have another question... will Molly get sick from eating them? She seems a little off right now..
 
She shouldn't get sick from that... she might be grieving though because she lost a lot of cage mates.

I'm so sorry they've got megacolon but in a way it's a relief knowing Molly did not cause this.
 

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