Mass death

[koubee]

SOLVED!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I found a dirty big feral rat, horrible big browish/black thing. It was swiftly disposed of....
I'm now redesigning my rat cage set up.

 

[The Reptile Outlet]

Good to see that the problem has been solved. All the best.
Joy

 

[dodgie]

SOLVED!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I found a dirty big feral rat, horrible big browish/black thing. It was swiftly disposed of....
I'm now redesigning my rat cage set up.

...

 

[mysnakesau]

It would not have been wild mice that did that. It would be the other way around - your rats would kill intruding mice. Somebody else recently put up a post about mass deaths and beleived they rats had a big canabalism spaz. He could not come up with any other explanation. If it was an intruding animal the rodents cages would have been tipped over except wild rats are very cunning and can do their damage without leaving any foot prints.

 

[mysnakesau]

Oops! too late, I didn't see your resolution post

 

[Carpetcleaner]

Wild rats!!! That's shocking!!! Who would have thought. Oh well, at least we all know now and anyone breeding their own mice/rats can be aware.
Well done for finding out what it was.

 

[ttaipan]

As i said earlier, wild rats & domestic rats are 2 different animals. Good that you got it. During colder months wild rats seek refuge eg. your shed especially if you keep rats. Your rats will attract them like a magnet.

 

[hallet]

have you thought that if a cat could get into the shed may have clawed at them but couldnt reach them but the rats would die from stress.
or as already stated another wild rat or a escapee may have been drawn to them from the smell thay produce and attracted them to the rats. or thirdly though in vic really dont get pythons in the wild but do have browns , tigers etc
i use to keep mouse cage catchers ( they could hold up to 15 odd in one night that is a record a friend had once on there poultry farm) to catch any wild mice lured to free food well in my rat shed one day found in my mouse cage catcher a caught 4 ft brown snake with mice in belly and one dead in cage but what goes into these cages cant get back out .
so maybe you did have a slithering visitor as you should know they can get in any gap and get out

 

[koubee]

I thoguht of the possibility of it being a scaley visitor as we do have copperheads around but i thought it would be too cold. Anyway i caught the offending visitor......................a wild rat!!

 

[Fireflyshuffle]

very good!! i cant belive it was a wild rat! learn somthing new everyday. so can i ask what is their aim then?like dotey go in on a rampage and just like slaugter them??or does he just stress them?im more intrested to know how it got in your actually cages?if that got in, wouldnt yours have gotten out?

 

[Kimbully]

I'm guessing he tried getting into cages and the females got wounded defending their litters through the bars and then died of stress and/or injuries.

Koubee, even if you find how it got in, I would keep a couple of traps permanently set up. A wild rat chewed through a solid plastic tub in our shed to get the guinea pig feed! Little buggers. Amusingly, a mouse fell into that hole and couldn't get out of the feed. While we were working out what to do with it, my sisters dog MaltxShit) jumped in and ate it!

Kim

 

[FNQ_Snake]

Whoo hoo, nice job. At least you know what it was.

 

[xenathepython]

Thats good

 

[richardsc]

i reckon the wild rat was interested in hybridising,and the lab rats were not to happy,being anti hybrids so a fight broke out,pros and cons were exchanged,lol,glad u caught the culprit,but bank on there being more,i found a sizable wild one in my herp shed one time,it had a broken back and was found struggling in the land mullet and eastern bearded enclosure,i wondered if perhaps the lizards beat the crap out of it,as they were out basking,but dispatched the rat and all lizards were a ok