# i ned a detective.. my rat died, or he was murdered



## bloodred1889 (Dec 26, 2008)

and i dont know how.

he was introduced to my young male rat ein who was young, about 6 weeks maybe 8.
he was alone in a small tank for a week then i bought a huge jenny cage and bought another male young rat who i called eddie.

the into went great, and they became friends quickly, they slept togther, ate together, and they had little fights which i thought was normal, somtimes it would get abit rough and id hear squeaking but again i thought it was nrmal as ive had brother male rats who would fight alot.

anyway everything was fine for a month but then i noticed both rats were gttng really thin, expecally eddie, but the food bowls had been eaten out of.
this went on for a couple of weeks then..

i found eddies body in the cage, his head had been cleaned right to the bone and his ribs were sticking out.
anyway he was dead, now i dont know why he died and how, thats why im asking your opinions.

it should be also noted that ein was alwats hard to get to come out of his cage because verytime myhnd went in he would go for it and bote hard.. not nibble.

so what do you think?
because im thiking of taking ein back for adoption becaus he cant live alone but im not sure he can live with another rat because ein COULD have killed eddie.

ein has also put on some weight since then but is still thin, still agressive but he dose seem to miss eddie.

plase help me because i do love ein but i just dont know what to do.


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## Meechity (Mar 20, 2009)

Holy crap... and this just had to be the first post I read; I'm new to this forum.   

Do you have wild mice in your home, eating your rats' food? Did Ein gain some weight right after the incident? Good luck figuring this one out....


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## bloodred1889 (Dec 26, 2008)

no i dont have wild rats or mice in my flat.

and yes ein is a little bigger now.


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## AMJ087 (Aug 27, 2008)

It sounds weird one would have killed the other and then consumed him. I didnt think rats usually fight to the death. If I was suspecting that though I would think about anything in their cage they may have fought over, limited sleeping areas, limited treats, etc... Anything is possible I guess. Was he showing any signs of being sick before he died? Sneezing more, lumps, head tilt, etc...? Is it possible something got into the cage they weren't suppose to have and he consumed it? Im really unsure what to think yet but I am extremely sorry for your loss. Maybe get him a spayed female to play with now, males and females are the easiest to introduce. If you strongly think he killed the other I wouldn't get a new one yet.


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## zoe9 (Oct 3, 2007)

I’ve never heard of a young rat killing a cage-mate and I would be really surprised if Ein killed Eddie. I think it's way more likely that Eddie just died and Ein then ate part of him. This can happen - it's an instinctual behaviour because in the wild a dead rat could attract predators so Ein was just trying to clean up his territory.

You have said both rats became really thin and this went on for a couple of weeks. Rats don't just get thin, especially babies. Rats lose weight because they don't have enough food, or because the food they are given is poor quality or because they are sick. What did you do when they started to lose weight? Did you change their diet? Take them to the vet?

It sounds to me like you had two sick rats and Eddie simply died as a result. 

Regarding Ein if he's still thin you need to look at his health and/or his diet and figure out what is wrong. If you don't feel you can adequately care for him then by all means find a new home for him.


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## bloodred1889 (Dec 26, 2008)

well its a jen y cage so there are two food bowls, the food was somthing i got from the pet store, its got pellits and dried things in it, stuff i would have fed to my rats i had when i was younger.

the women at the shop said rts get thin when stressed and maybe ein was stressing out eddie and eddie stressing out ein, but eddie died and ein didnt, and i hae to admit ein is putting on more weight now eddie has gone.
and ein is eating the food the bowls are empty and neerly empty.
i thought maybe ein ould have been stopping eddie from eating, they did fight but not excessively so.

ein is looking moopy like he misses eddie i really want to either get him a nother male, or a female, or put him up for adoption and get two brothers.


ein and eddie showed no signs of being ill, they layed together, had bright eyes, ran around the cage and played alot, and of course had some squobbles.

when they were getting thin, i didnt take them to the vet becuse they seemed healthy apart from being a little thin t the time, maybe i was too late and eddie starved to death but i saw both eating together and alone, and i could hear them at night eatin and drinking.
i do feel guilty if it was my fault, but they really wre very active despite being a little thinner then usual, i mean i coudnt feel there ribs they wernt that thin, they were just.. lighter.

i really feel sorry for ein because he seems bored and alone.


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## bethany (Mar 24, 2009)

How awful. I'm so sorry.

I haven't got a clue as to what happened but the sickness leading to death then instinctual cannibalism sounds most plausible.


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## thriftyhiker (Dec 21, 2010)

I know this is an old thread but was hoping someone can provide some insight. I had this same thing happen to me. My son was given a female who had a litter. We thought it would be nice to keep one of her offspring (sorry, don't know the term for baby rat) for our daughter. 

Everything was going great for several weeks but then I found a gory scene. The offspring was dead and there was a giant hole in her side and all of her internal organs were eaten! Is this normal? Should we not have kept a female and her daughter together?


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## Kiko (Sep 18, 2009)

when a rat dies which is usually of illness/natural causes the other rats in the cage if left to themselves will eat the corpse as a cleanup because it's in their territory. Many animals do this it's nothing to be alarmed by although it is disgusting.
All rats should be kept together so keeping a daughter was a fine idea. Rats are not like people obviously and won't commit murder or anything like that.


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## eluin (Jan 25, 2010)

I've had several rats cannibalize each other. It is sad and it is not terribly common, but it has happened to two separate rats in my house. Sometimes they do that. They also aren't terribly good about showing us that they were sick, so sometimes the other rats know that they are sick before we do. I've had rats die with no apparent cause and be eaten for no reason I could see. I would not bet that your baby was killed and it would not be a bad idea to get another female for your female if she is alone now. 

As for the OP, it looks like both of their rats were sick and eating a crappy seed mix from the petstore. Bad food could have caused the weight loss and it sounds like the OP didn't take them to the vet when the rat first started showing signs of being sick. It is my guess that the remaining rat cannibalized his cagemate out of instinct, nothing more malicious than that, after the sick rat died of his illness.


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## begoodtoanimals (Dec 6, 2007)

And never trust the advice of the pet stores. They often don't know what they are talking about, they don't care, especially the large chain stores.See a vet when you worry about their health.
Most likely they ate the diseased cage mate, not killed their buddy. Only people do that.


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## Alethea (Jul 14, 2010)

I am so sorry to hear that something like that could have happened. Putting all of this together, it seems that perhaps they both had some kind of disease or sickness that was making them loose weight. And as horrid and terrible of a thought that it is, perhaps Ein really did do what you think and what people are stating, since something like that is not out of the realm of reason. Animals are animals after all... Perhaps I would suggest for you to take Ein vet and get him checked out?


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## lilspaz68 (Feb 24, 2007)

I don't think cannibalized or eaten is the right word for this. Its a leftover natural instinct from the wild, where rats will clean up a fallen comrade's buddy because it could draw a predator's attention to the healthy colony. In a small enclosed space like a cage the imperative could be stronger, but there's no nutritional thing going on.

It's really just like animal mom's eating/cleaning up the afterbirth after the birth of their young. Its just revolting to humans not to anything else.


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## Kiko (Sep 18, 2009)

It gets us pet owners so bad because we like to make our pets seem human and attach our morals to them. Animals don't have morals, so there is nothing wrong to THEM about the act. To us it's basically eating a dead brother/sister.

Ignorance is bliss I suppose. If one has no morals one can feel no wrong.


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## Alethea (Jul 14, 2010)

"Ignorance is bliss I suppose. If one has no morals one can feel no wrong."

So very true. I guess things like this stopped bothering me when I was young and had a male hamster that ate both of his cage-mates. They were a non-aggressive breed, but something went wrong and he went nuts. Then to see my cat eat him when his hamster ball broke a few weeks after the cage massacre. 

Ignorance is bliss and for that hamster, what goes around comes around *shruggles*


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## lilspaz68 (Feb 24, 2007)

Syrian hamsters are always aggressive to each other. If they weren't dwarf hammies then you had a real killing on your hands.

Sad story to make a point. I haven't experienced any of the Ratty Cleanups yet, with hundreds of rats through my hands, and I would like to keep it that way. I can deal with blood, guts, surgeries, etc...but that would have me asking for help!


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## Kiko (Sep 18, 2009)

I think the rat would have be left for a while before that happened anyway.

I know with my mice....well anyone with multiple mice knows what happens :/


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## smesyna (Nov 22, 2010)

I want to point out something that occurred to me. With those seed mixes, not only do they not get enough nutrition with them, but people often just top off the bowl each day. They think they are giving them lots of food, but most of what is left is the unedible stuff like shells. I doubt the OP is reading this, but I thought I'd give a word of warning that rats have starved to death from people just topping off the seed mix


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## HuncaMunca (Dec 29, 2010)

Maybe they had an internal parasite or something similar. Unless it was the food it's hard to know.


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## eluin (Jan 25, 2010)

Kiko said:


> I think the rat would have be left for a while before that happened anyway.
> 
> I know with my mice....well anyone with multiple mice knows what happens :/


I would not say that they have to be left for too long. I left my little Imp for a work shift (9 hours) and when I came home, he was both dead and eaten. I don't know how much of him was eaten, since Boyfriend had him wrapped up so that I wouldn't have to see, but I'm assuming it had to be pretty bad or he'd not have worried so much about me seeing it.


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## smesyna (Nov 22, 2010)

Eluin said:


> Kiko said:
> 
> 
> > I think the rat would have be left for a while before that happened anyway.
> ...


Your bf is very sweet, I know mine would do it for me too...

I've heard of people leaving the rat even less time as well and having it happen :-\


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## blkittygirl (Jan 1, 2011)

I just went through the same scenario two days ago. I had two rats, but they couldn't be together as they fought seriously all the time. Lots of squeaking and fur flying everywhere. My older rat, Rhino, was about 2 1/2 and on his way out I suspect. He was very dominant and would beat the heck out of Nutsy.

Anyway, Rhino must have fallen off his open cage onto the floor. I followed the "raisins" to the place where Nutsy's cage sits. Rhino was curled up in the corner of the cage dead and his head was half eaten. I was distressed when I saw this. So is it normal?


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## Alethea (Jul 14, 2010)

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081130021124AA3WAbM
_
"No, it is not normal at all, however rats cannibalize corpses of their friends in the wild to hide the scent of a decomposing body which will lead predators to their burrow.

Sometimes kill each other in a fight, it depends on how old they were. If they were male and female they are more likely to fight as the male will try to breed the female even if she is not in heat, and if she isn't she will fight with him. 

Rats also will kill and eat each other if they are starving."_

I thought this bit was useful, but then you see other people posting that it is normal. 
What is normal anymore?


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## lilspaz68 (Feb 24, 2007)

Its an instinctual leftover behaviour from the wild. I honestly things it depends on the strength of that instinct in that particular rat which is why its not related to the time the body is left in there.


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## Alethea (Jul 14, 2010)

When Sensi passed away, he was in the cage for about an hour until I came home and found him, resting his little head over the level like he always did. He was in the middle of the level and my other two males at the time, Cheech and Diesel, would not go near the body. When they were moving along the levels when I came over to inspect the situation, they were jumping over him and wouldn't touch him. 

But then on the other-hand when Skunk passed, my other three males I had at the time, Jack, Sensi and Diesel were investigating and pushing my hands away from the box he passed under.

But never have I encountered that kind of real, instinctual behavior with my ratties. :[ 
Out of this bad, at least you know that if your rat was wild, he would be a smartie ^_^


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