sudden rat death

Question
Hello Sandra,
My partner and I have (had, I suppose) 3 female rats. Two single rex dumbos and a double rex hairless fancy. We got them all from a really good breeder whom we trust and did all the right things. Last night, we came home to find one of them, Pie, dead in their bed. There was a slight wound around her mouth, but we're assuming the other rats started to eat her. It was very unexpected and very upsetting. She had been acting completely normal before we left, just hours earlier. Tonight, when I returned home from work, I fed the remaining two, as usual, and they were both acting completely normal. Quirky, inquisitive, excited to eat, etc. Not but 2 hours after their feeding I went back to find our hairless, Brody, dead. I am very confused. we do research constantly to keep up on keeping our rats safe and healthy. We feed them lots of veggies, proteins, and of course their high fat protein food pellets. I don't know what to do, and I can't help but fear for the life of our remaining rat. I was just wondering if there was any sort of virus or infection that would take a cage by storm like this. Thank you for your time. Sincerely, Heather.

Answer
Hi Heather

I am very very sorry for your loss. It could have been anything that took her life, from a bad heart to a brain aneurysm. This can occur out of the blue.  I do want to ask if you possibly made a mistake though when you said you feed your rats high fat protein food pellets.  Rats should NEVER be fed high protein or any foods high in fat as this is very taxing on their kidneys and can cause kidney disease/failure later in life causing an earlier than normal death as well.  Its also a strain on the liver as well. And of course, fats are bad for the heart in general for any living creature.  A normal healthy adult rat should not have more than 15% protein daily, ideally 12% but thats not an easy task unless we feed them nothing but low protein harlan teklad rat pellets which can be very boring for our little rats to give them the same thing day in and day out.  You can read more about rat diets and other info on my site, sandyscrittercity.com which is my personal website about rat care that contains accurate and up to date info on rat care.   Again, I wish I could tell you what took the rats life but without a necropsy its more like an educated guess.