Why do rodents sometimes eat their babies?

A freind's hamster gave birth. However, when he acccidentally touched the babies, the mother ate them. My friend said it had something to her detecting his scent on them. Why do hamsters (and other rodents) do this?Why do rodents sometimes eat their babies?
It's pretty simple, the mother identifies the baby by smell. That's the only way the mother knows that it's her baby. If shes smelling her babies, and one doesn't smell like her babies, then it's not her baby. (That's what she thinks) She decides its not her baby, so it may be a foreign animal that may hurt her baby, or just an outsider from another litter, an outsider of which she cant waste her precious milk on. It's survival of the fitest, and mom must make sure she has enough milk for her babies, she can't take on the challenge of an outsider, and since the baby smells differnet, she thinks its an outsider.Why do rodents sometimes eat their babies?
Basically it is to protect the babies. They think that if they don't eat them then the human will. I know it is silly because both ways.. they are gonna die. But that's just how some rodents think!





The only rodent that doesn't do that is guinea pigs. They are born with hair and their eyes open and the mother does not mind you handling them for too long. Guinea pigs have been known to just eat part of their babies though due to 'overcleaning' them. That is accidental though and usually they just eat a leg or ear - they survive a lot of them time.
Well the mother ate them because there was human scent on them.


I dont know why they eat them when there is, but its jst what they do.
because they are much the same as the goverment a bunch of rodents its what they do
It can happen because something is wrong with the babies, stress (like handling too soon) and sometimes first time mothers just don't know what to do or get carried away with cleaning. It can also happen when there are two or more litters of different ages (for example: w/a group of mice...you wouldn't want to keep two syrian hamsters together at all). The younger and therefore smaller litter can be mistaken for runts...the mothers will perceive the litter as unhealthy, even though it isn't..
hmmmm.....


aha!! maybe your friend hold the pups(the baby hams)


coz the baby's smell will become different if you hold the pups,and when the mother sniff its pups and it smells different, she will ignore the baby or because she thinks its not her baby, she will just eat it so she will have more nutrients in her body.





tip/s: if you ever take care or if other takes care of a hamster, never touch, don't look too long to the babies! the best way so that the hamster will not eat the pups is just cover the cage.
I had this problem with my mice and it wasnt because i touched them although this could be a reason, sometimes rodents will eat their babies if they have too many to cope with or if one is ill and the mother can sense this, this behaviour is basically survival techniques that would be shown in the wild the hamster may have felt worried by the scent left on its baby/babies or not know they were hers.


If an animals isnt being fed it may also turn on its own children for food purposes.
Maybe they think theyre jellybabies.
usually when mothers eat their babies its because when they figure that this baby is going to slow them down and end up having a pretador come and come and eat her and the whole litter, so the mother is trying to get rid of the whole crime scene so the pretador doesnt smell it. or, the mother got carried away when eating the plasenta (i prolly didnt spell that right) and kept on eating the babies. its not his fault. that stuff just happens.
They don't feel safe.


Think about a wild mouse with a litter of pups. If the den is discovered, she essentially decides to ';pack up'; the proteins that she has expended to ';make'; them so that she can move to a new location and try again. She does this by eating the pups.


It's not that she is protecting them (as someone said earlier).. because her young aren't so precious as the protein it takes to make them. Mice breed every 24 days or so, so we can understand if their values are a little different than ours in this regard.


Also it could be that the mother is malnourished and can't make proper milk for so many youngsters.


I don't believe it's as simple as human smell, because when I bred mice my female breeders felt very secure with me (the were pets and held daily) as a result, when I held their babies they didn't eat them or ignore them or anything else.
they can detect something wrong with the pups which they wouldn't survive, a strange smell on them, not enough room in the environment, not the right conditions for them to survive like a food scarcity.
well i think its to protect them in a way
yeh ur friend was rite they just like their scent on them its their way in the wilding knowin tha they theirs and nobody elses sorry 2 hear about the hamster eating the babys better luck next time ! : )
Birds do it to they don't like to smell humans on their young.
yes if the mother sences another scent on a baby she eats it because she doesn't want to harm her other children strange isn't it but there you go!