• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

Dead momma rat

nlt71

nlt71

New member
Hi. I had a rat that was due to have babies. Last night, she looked like she was in labor, but otherwise fine. When I checked her after work today---hoping for babies, she was dead. This also happened to a mouse last week.

Is this a vitamin deficiency? It doesn't seem contagious since I have had other rats and mice give birth recently. Any experience with this?

Thanks.
 
I've had that happen in my rat and mice colonies as well. I'm leaning towards more of a complication in the birthing process (dystocia) that causes the death of the mother, but I really have no proof.
 
That's very common - especially in younger rodents being bred for the first or second time. It's such a waste, but there is nothing you can do about it. If it becomes common, you may want to switch feed (rats too obese or something), switch the bloodline of rat that you are breeding, or get larger cages / reduce the stocking density.

KJ
 
I've also heard that the age which they have their first litter is extremely important. Too young, and their bodies haven't matured enough to take the strain, too old, and it's essentially too late for them to get 'broken in' (please excuse the phrase) to the process. I'm NOT positive at all, but I think that first-timers should be between 4-6 months for optimum reproductive health.

If I'm wrong, someone please correct me.
 
Last edited:
Thank you. Eventhough it's not clear what happened, I'm relieved to hear that it has happened to other people too. Both the rat and the mouse had given birth before---that's why when the mouse died, I wasn't concerned because she was old. The rat wasn't very old. Hmmmm. I hope it is just a freak thing and the rest are fine.

Nancy
 
Sometimes they have a heart attack during birthing. I lost an older female rat this way. She was HUGELY pregnant, it was her last litter before becoming a "pet".
 
Thank you. Just this week, I had a mouse give birth and a first-timer rat give birth. Maybe it was just a fluke.
 
Just wondering if she looked any bigger than the last time she birthed a litter?
Perhaps indicating a larger litter or a larger baby.

I do not know about rats...so this is antecdotal...but in talking with small dog breeders they have a lot of issues with birthing litters of even one pup more. Upon c-sections sometimes the first pup in line to come out is too big for the momma although there may only be 2-3 pups in her and without the c-section the momma would have died trying to deliver because it was just not possible (actually had a couple human friends have the same thing happen):shrugs:

The circle of life stinks...
I hope the rest of the year goes well for you.
 
I hope this doesn't sound cynical, but rats "breed like rabbits." Theres almost nothing you can do to keep your females from getting pregnant. I have tried the whole separate the prego female out, but the babies can knock her up just the same! I was blown away, I thought I finally put a stop to the rat breeding, calmed my wife down about the numbers, and 3 weeks later 3 LITTERS!!! Theres almost nothing you can do about this, if anyone knows something more than I do please let me know. I have a large rat, and mice colony for my snakes and I freeze more than I could ever use...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top