2013 /2014 northern baby season has begun

[Richard.C]

Went out to check on the females,no babies from earliest bred ones yet but noticed young female kunnanurra lass eating something,on closer inspection ot was a baby,hopefully it was the only one

Saw no heavy breathing,nor had she put on much weight and she was onlu mated after the big girls had ovulated,so shorter gestation period

,am watching her now in case any more babies come

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[Richard.C]

Ok can see slight laboured breathing now,had a search of cage ,no more babies,shes now charging and biting at me,thats a first,shes not solid at all ,so must be a small litter

[Dakota]

Not a good way to start the season off, huh? I wonder why the Northern is so much more aggressive toward their own species that the rest of the species of BTS..

[Richard.C]

She lives with another female from her litter,they get on great,just hating me right now,lol,shes normally very mellow

This is first time ive seen a northern eat its baby though did find one last season that appeared to be head chomped,and babies had been in with adults for a day or 2

This female is very light,only put on 25 grams and had been a picky eater during pregnancy,so perhaps babies developing left little room for food making her extra hungry now

Im a smidgen to big for her to eat though,lol,shes pacing around a fair bit so hopefully can see her drop some more and get them out with out losing any more or a finger

[Richard.C]

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Almost 3 hours after watching her devour a baby she popped a slug,turned around and devoured it

[mark_w]

Rich you sure it wasn't a still born? It makes sense to eat slugs, egg masses and still borns when resources are scarce. I'm not saying resources are scarce at your place, but that they have been scarce over the course of evolution!

[Richard.C]

There is that possability,i found a babies tail in cage to so at least 2 got eaten,had to leave for work at 5 am and she was trting to push still

[Seadation]

That sucks!

[Richard.C]

That it does,even more so that i had to go to work leaving her pushing more this morning,hopefully if theees any babies there ok,i was actually losing confidence she would drop as she showed zero signs of being gravid

[Toria Dawn]

these pics made me sad, but I guess it's just nature right? You can't control it.

[Richard.C]

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Got home from work and found another slug,she doest look to have lost a great deal of weight and had no interest in eatung the slug but shes eaten at least 2 babies and a slug already so is probably quite content now and weight could be because shes eaten what shes dropped


Odd also is she started yesterday evening,found her eating baby at 8.30 pm,wasnt till 11.20 pm that she dropped a slug after eating baby,and at 5 am when i checked on her she was trying to push something out,but had to bail to work

Her slugs are very small,understandable as shes quite small to ,so perhaps being so small doesnt help either,im still suprised she dropped before her mum and prince regent lass as those 2 ovulated before she even got mated

[Dakota]

Could it be one of those situations like where mammals eat their babies if they lack some type of thing in order to live properly (something to that effect)? Maybe that babies just weren't developing correctly in the womb or something.. I don't know..

[Richard.C]

Could be a number of things,shes had them earlier than the big girls ,the baby i caught her eating looked in decent shape,but who knows,could have been a still born,though it looked to have shed and no sign of birth sack,she may have just been really hungry as she had been eating small amounts since mating,may have been not a great deal of room to eat much,be interesting to see if her sister has any,marginally shorter but solider,and she lives full time with the young male that bred this one,didnt see any mating but she did have shoulder scarring

[Lea]

Ahh, very sad, Richard, but it just proves that Nature and instinct kick in, even when you have well fed adults. She most likely sensed something was up, rather than just maliciously eat the babies. Hopefully she'll get through this without event and stay nice and healthy herself.

Is it strange to see the females have such an appetite to eat so soon after giving birth, Richard, or do they just carry on eating as normal, if not, even more so, like this one?

[Richard.C]

Normally they happily devour slugs straight away

Ive had the odd one eat between babies but generally they concentrate on ridding them selves of babies,then have a rest before starting to eat ravenously again

[Richard.C]

Almost 24 jours since i found her eating baby,shes just dropped another slug,no interest in eating it,she still looks to have more to come

[Lea]

Hmm, that's sad. All that effort to be gravid with no babies to show for it yet. I feel for her, must be an exhausting time.

[Jeff]

I didn't see this earlier or I would have suggested that you leave some small hiding places in the enclosure that the babies could fit into but the mother couldn't so that they would at least have a chance to escape if more were born while you were away.

That's too bad that she ate the babies. I have never seen any of my mothers eat a live baby. I have seen a few eat stillborns though. I would think there is a decent chance that the babies were dead before she ate them.

[mark_w]

I didn't see this earlier or I would have suggested that you leave some small hiding places in the enclosure that the babies could fit into but the mother couldn't so that they would at least have a chance to escape if more were born while you were away.

That's too bad that she ate the babies. I have never seen any of my mothers eat a live baby. I have seen a few eat stillborns though. I would thing there is a decent chance that the babies were dead before she ate them.

Me too, if that's any consolation.