Are rats cannibals? Or be this a coincidence?
A couple of months, ago, I think, we were raising rats. We bought them from Petco, me and my sister departed them in our garage, next day, (Yes we feed them) I found my rat's tail. And a slab of meat. It's kinda weird that it was my white rats that died, my sister's black ones who lived. Do you think my sister's rats ate mine?
http://www.ratbehavior.org/infanticide.h...
Infanticide so yeah its probably possable
Rats are very social, it is few and far between for one to kill another, unless the killer was an aggressive mannish. Rats do not cannibalize naturally. These are 6 possible solutions
-the rat that died was a mouse (unlikely, they're easy to update apart
-the rat was killed by a different animal, like a raccoon or a cat. (I'm betting on this one)
-the rat you adopt was actual a wild rat (unlikely, if it be at petco)
-the rat killed the other rat out of fear, rats should not be garage, it is dangerous
-the rat died from discouraging conditions in the garage
-the killer rats are crazy
Answers: It's terribly unlikely that they killed each other, especially whether you bought them both from the same tank. It's more likely that one of them died of other cause and the other rat cannibalized the corpse. Rats in the wild will eat the corpses of departed rats so the smell doesn't attract predators to their nest, and also to conserve nutrients when food is hard to find.
In the future I wouldn't recommend getting rats from Petco, as they buy their rats from feeder farms and are generally not tame. It's always better to get your rats from a breeder where on earth you can be sure you are getting a friendly, loving, healthy pet.
rats are trained to devour whatever they can find just by natural instincts, particularly if you got them recently. its resembling moving to a new territory, they arent sure whether they are going to be fed or not, even if there is food nearby in front of them, and their natural instincts tell them "hey food!" i dont feel your sister's rat ate yours, but i think one of them died for some reason or another and they ate it because it was unmoving carcass, and they eat anything they can get, whether for food or to tear apart for nesting
all rodents mice rats hamsters gerbils will fight,kill,and munch through the remains its got nothing to do with starvation,its what they do in the wild,
yes it's possible. We have a pet snake so we we buy mice for feeding him we put them in a additional cage till he's ready to eat. one time we have five mice in the cage a couple days later we individual had four and the remains from the fifth mouse was still in here. (Just his spine and tail.)
Just yesterday I went to nurture our pet rats. We have 11. 3 males and 8 females. The 3 males are in cage together, they are brothers, born this departed January. Anyway, when I went to feed them yesterday 2 of the males were departed and their heads were eaten rotten. I can't believe that this has happened. I can't find anything on the internet about it. It made me sick and I can't win that picture out of my mind. So, yes I now believe rats will definitely devour other rats. And yes we fed them everyday a wide variety of foods including lots of fruits and veggies.
it happens. whether they get into a fight, whoever wins will put away the loser. also, if one dies, the ones that live will eat the dead one.
Here's a REALLY virtuous article about it.
http://www.ratballs.com/RatTails/Tails10...
Rats do NOT kill other rats. They're happy and social animals. Rats instinctively put away their dead. There are tons of theories as to why this would happen, but no matter, any the eaten rat was dead, first or the offending rat be crazy... that or some other creature got into your garage.
It is TERRIBLE to keep rats in a garage. They obligation a warm, non-drafty and comfortable environment JUST LIKE US. Never do that, again. That's awful. my rat was contained by the mudroom for a while and she got SICK from drafts. I can't imagine keeping rats in a GARAGE! What is WRONG near you? Ugh.
It's possible. I regard a rat would eat just about anything whether he/she got hungry enough.
