[littleangel]

Hello! i joined this forum becaus i had an important and urgent question, i will make a post introducing my self and my rats later, i just need your help right now to understand. I have 8 rats, they are in pairs in different cages and one of them had a litters with her in her cage. I left this morning for work and they were all playing or just hanging out , what im trying to say is that they were fine. I came back from work about 5 hours later and the first thing i heard when i stepped into my appartement were high pitched squeaks from one of the cages, i rushed and i found 4/8 of my rats dead and more than half of the litter dead too. I dont understand, none of them had health problems, they were all alright this morning and they were all in separate cage so i dont understand , its not the food because they all ate the same food and half of them are still fine, i dont understand and i am very upset, my sweet babies passed away when i wasnt there and for no apparent reason, i dont understand, i need your help as of why they did or anything.... im sorry this is so long i am very upset thank you.. they were all between the age of 6 months and 9 months...
R.I.P Lana, Sttellla, Marilyn and Pirhanna

 

[moonkissed]

I am sorry for your loss.

I am a bit confused.

You said:

I have 8 rats, they are in pairs in different cages

So you had 4 separate cages each having 2 rats in it? Why do you have it set up that way?

How did the one female get pregnant?

There is no way possible for us to tell u how your rats died. You can take them to the vet to perform a necropsy.

Did you bring in any new rats or visit with outside rats or pet stores? It is possible a virus came in such as SDA or Sendai, it would wipe out your rats pretty hard

I'd atleast take your current rats to the vet to rule out anything so u do not lose them as well.

It could also be something like a gas leak, something dangerous in the air, was your place too hot or too cold while u were gone?

 

[littleangel]

We had one male rat and he got the female pregnant, we separated them so the females wouldnt be with the male and also some of out females didnt get along, we separated some of them to prevent fighting or due to a cage too small to contain more than 2 or 3 rats (we didnt want them all squeezed in the same cage and suffering from it until we found a cage big enough to hold them all together) I checked the temperature, it stayed at 20°c as usual, and we didnt bring any new rats or went to pet store.. I will check with my landlord for any gas leaks or anything but just like you, i am completly clueless, it all happened so fast.. thank you for your answer..

 

[DVirginiana]

Are you in an area where Radon gas is a common issue? A landlord wouldn't know about it unless the levels are high enough to cause an issue for humans, but the faster an animal's respiration rate (as well as the closer they are to the ground) the more likely it is to cause a problem for them. Just came to mind because I'm from an area of the US where radon is a fairly common problem, and I know of people who blame it for the deaths of pet rabbits. idk how much of that is urban legend, but I thought I'd mention it...

Regardless, I'm sorry that you lost so many rats at once