Why did my Feeder Rat die?

Question

I have two snakes & I got tired of going to the pet store every week to get rats to feed them so I decided that I would buy 6 rats and keep them in a cage so I wouldnt have to go to the store all the time to buy them.

Well I woke up this morning and go to feed the rats and one of them is crawling on the ground, twitching and then just falls to its side and dies.

I am just wonderin what may have caused it to die?

Things that you might need to know... There are 3 other rats that were with the one that died, and i am using an old snake tank to keep them in. and they arent full grown rats they are about 3 inches long, not including the tail, and an inch tall.

Answer 1

Your cruel.

Answer 2

this is'nt the sort of question you should ask responsible rat owners if your in the uk it is ILLEGALL to feed live rodents to snakes to best off my knowledge .

you do not feed them frozen you put them in luke warm water to defrost and bring to body temperature if  you buy frozen

Answer 3

3 inches long is not a "full-grown" rat, it's a baby. A full-grown rat is about twice the size. Feeder rats aren't exactly the healthiest animals,  they're bred to live a short time under taxing conditions. Why your rat died is impossible to say without an autopsy - could have choked on something, or had a stroke, or a bad resp. infection or some kind of internal thing.  

Answer 4

If one rat dies, that means it was sick, therefore your other rats may have contracted the illness. Just a thought. If you feed the rats to your snake, it may become ill. I suggest you feed frozen rats or place them in the freezer.

Answer 5

Tanks are bad for their respiration, and they can easily get upper respiratory infections and die from them.

Also, they sound rather young, what are you feeding them?  If they're really young, they may not be real great at eating on their own, and so they could have gotten weak and died from a combination of that and stress.

His belly being yellow makes me think he wasn't moving much (so was laying in his own mess) which could be as a result of many things.  Either being scared/stressed, sick, etc.

Answer 6

In agreeing with Julie L, the frozen rat option is a far better choice in the future if you really care for your snake. Live rats often harbor disease or bacteria  that can be harmful to the snake. Rats have also been known to injure the snakes eyes.

You can expect to just throw a bunch of rats in a cage and have them live. Keeping rats for any length of time over a day is more complicated. Rats from stores usually already have comprimized immune systems and are very suseptable to upper respiratory infection... especially when kept in a tank. They need more of an air flow. Keeping that many together isn't the greatest idea either as rats tend to fight, sometimes to the point of death.

If you insist on keeping live rats in the future you may want to invest in a wire cage with a solid bottom. Make sure to use either pine bedding or Carefresh as these are the best products at mass petstores. Actual rat food is a must as this keeps them healthy. As an extra point you could even add a few drops of liquid echinacea to their water as some people think this helps better the rats immune system.

As for why it died... probably the poor conditions with added stress. The yellow was probably urnine.

Answer 7

All arts are born with a respitory disease...  it just takes something to trigger it off.    Maybe he had a cold,  maybe he didnt get the right nutrition to have a healthy life,   is he on pine or a scented bedding.  rats noses are very sencitive to smells. anything too smelly could set off their respitory track.

   follow up,  he probably just died of a respitory disease.   Dont worry about your snake. you can go ahead and feed it to him. snakes arent affected by rat diseases.  just incase your other rats have the same problem, your snake can still eat the rats. there is nothing wrong with them.