From 7 to 3 :(

Question
My pet albino rat had babies 2wks ago..I moved her from dad & kept her in the front with me. The first night one baby went missing, then 2 nights ago she attacked & killed one baby, then today she attacked & killed two more..there was enough food for 20rats in the cage & she is very healthy aside from limited vision, there was no need for competition as I moved her. She has allways been a gentle rat but in the last few days she would snatch food from me agressivly rather than sit with me & eat. What went wrong, & will she remain agressive? I read your site on baby care..thank you for the much needed tips. They seem to be lapping ok so far!

Answer
 Pregnancy can be very stressful on a mother rat, and some rats will be bad mothers and grow aggressive towards humans.  This is usually due to pregnancy hormones and the drive to keep their litter protected.  Since she obviously is rejecting her litter you will have to continue to hand feed the babies but since they are already two weeks old you should have no problem there.  They will probably even be better pets because of it!  All you can do about the mother, however, is to wait a few weeks and hope she calms down.  Usually when a mother rat grows aggressive due to pregnancy it stops shortly after the babies are weaned.  Hopefully this will be the case here as well.  I wouldn't recommend putting the babies back in with her unless you are watching them just in case she decides to kill another one, though I think it would be good to still let her see them if it's for short periods of time and under your supervision.  If her aggressiveness goes away you should be able to move the babies back in with her once they are a few weeks older and can stand their ground a bit better if she chooses to fight.

 Well I hope she gets better soon, good luck with your rats!