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ASF'S eating their babies

corns&balls

corns&balls

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I have a problem with a couple of my ASF colonies eating their babies I know I can't be the only one that has ever had this problem. So if anyone has any information on how to resolve this little problem, I would appreciate it.
My groups consist of one male to three females, and there is always food and water available, as well as hides for them. I also feed them a quility diet. (Mazuri)
Thanks for any help !
 
The easiest solution is to feed them to snakes and replace them with new groups. It seems to work best when all of the females in a group are littermates or at least housed together since weaning. I usually start each new group with 4 to 6 females. Once they are obviously pregnant, I split them up into 2 or 3 groups according to the degree of pregnancy, so litters birth/wean at about the same time and the sisters are pretty much synchronized with each other after that. I think 3 females per group is pushing it. 2 works better for me as far as maximum production with fewest glitches.
 
corns&balls said:
I have a problem with a couple of my ASF colonies eating their babies I know I can't be the only one that has ever had this problem. So if anyone has any information on how to resolve this little problem, I would appreciate it.
My groups consist of one male to three females, and there is always food and water available, as well as hides for them. I also feed them a quility diet. (Mazuri)
Thanks for any help !
Click to expand...

I run 1.4 on my asf and was having the same issue you are the only way I found to remedy the issue was to cycle them out into independant holds once the female is about due let her and the babies be alone till weaning time
 
Are they new groups? Sometimes first time moms eat babies, then go on to be great moms to the next litters. If they're repeat offenders, I'd feed them off and start over with new rats. What sort of space do they have? Are they in a high-traffic area of your home, or maybe you have a dog or cat that's able to pester them?

I run 1.2 in 10 gallon tanks and notice very few babies go missing. I too feed Mazuri and all my guys have wheels and wood blocks to chew. The only problem I have is that if I leave babies in too long past weaning the adults will sometimes kill a few, but that's my own fault.
 
Thanks for the reply. They seem to have settled down for now. They all have babies, just not as many. Anywhere from 3 to 15, But that is an improvement.
 
MagickalMorphs said:
Are they new groups? Sometimes first time moms eat babies, then go on to be great moms to the next litters. If they're repeat offenders, I'd feed them off and start over with new rats. What sort of space do they have? Are they in a high-traffic area of your home, or maybe you have a dog or cat that's able to pester them?

I run 1.2 in 10 gallon tanks and notice very few babies go missing. I too feed Mazuri and all my guys have wheels and wood blocks to chew. The only problem I have is that if I leave babies in too long past weaning the adults will sometimes kill a few, but that's my own fault.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the reply. They are all about 1 to 1 1/2 years old, I seem to have some good moms and some bad ones, I just haven't been able to figure out who is the bad egg yet. I have them in 20 gal long and 65 gal tanks, but plan on building a rack with concrete mixing tubs, and cutting the ratio down to 1.2. I don't have any wheels in the tanks but they do have wood blocks.
 
In my exsperience one will spread the bad love to the rest once they get a taste of a little pup. I tried getting a higher protien content food but it didnt matter. I thought that maybe the asfs were just too imbred and after i added new blood i held back all of the babbies because i was affraid that they would eat them as well and next thing i know i had well over 500 asfs lol. Now i cant truely say that it was because of too much line breeding but i know my results were good so i just went with it.
 
irishanaconda said:
In my exsperience one will spread the bad love to the rest once they get a taste of a little pup. I tried getting a higher protien content food but it didnt matter. I thought that maybe the asfs were just too imbred and after i added new blood i held back all of the babbies because i was affraid that they would eat them as well and next thing i know i had well over 500 asfs lol. Now i cant truely say that it was because of too much line breeding but i know my results were good so i just went with it.
Click to expand...
Thanks. I need to find someone in the area that has some asfs, so I can get some new blood lines.
 
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