Female Rats Fighting = Death!

[DJ Tucker]

My mate has 2 female rats in a shared cage that have been living together happily for 8 months. However, one of the female rats is now a mother and has given birth to 10 babies. One morning she woke up to find that the other rat (not the mother) has been killed rather violently The rats head had been destroyed and all the insides were hanging out and the head was still hanging on and the 2 front legs looked like they had been pulled through the chest

Now my question is: Does anyone know what may of caused this terrible tragedy to a well loved rat?

[InspectahACE]

Well it had to have been the mother who did it. Female animals tend to get real real anal when it comes to their newborns that's for sure. I owned a cat for a few years before she gave birth to a litter between my bed and my dresser. And when I went under my bed to get a baseball one day, she attacked me. In other words, I was way too close to her babies for her comfort even though I wasn't going after her kittens(or what I considered close). I would say that might be what happened in that cage. Maybe the other rat didn't like the babies and the mother picked up on that and she did her bid, not sure.

[Illuminati]

I agree... I'm sure the mother rat's natural instincts to protect it's young were what killed the other rat.

[vicaphit]

PMS?

Pretty much any animal will act that way, especially when they are in an enclosed space like a cage.