So to preface this, I've done so much research online through google and searching forums, and so far, my experience has not come up. I have called my vet in the area that takes on small mammals, but they are extremely booked up right now, so in the mean time, I will ask you guys. This is a long story that's been going on for a couple months so I'll try to make it as brief as possible. Basically, my rats are dying from a disease that's spreading across my mammal room (a room dedicated to them), and I just realized how it's happening, and I don't know what it could possibly be. I've taken in feeder rats for years now, dozens of babies (not literal babies) since 2014. I have never encountered anything close to this and it's freaking me out.

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It all started with a pack of four males I had. They were full grown, happy, healthy, got along perfectly fine, and then one day, I noticed one didn't show up to the front of the cage during feeding time. I have several rats at any given time, and I hadn't noticed this one in particular was missing until that night (but I know for a fact he was completely fine, eating, scurrying around the previous night). So within 24 hours, something awful had happened. He was at the bottom of the cage, dead, and although I couldn't process exactly what I was looking at, I knew immediately it was something nightmarish. My poor baby Mongoose was flat against the blankets, hairless (he was a hairy albino), and- this is where it gets particularly horrifying- his tail looked like it was eaten to the bone. Like imagine an eaten corn on the cob (I know this is disgusting, but I have no idea how to paint this picture). I dropped to my knees, my heart was pounding, I was already crying, it was just a horrible, horrible thing to witness. I get very attached to these rats and seeing something like that was permanently traumatizing

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So at first I assumed that within the past 24 hours, they had killed and consumed him. And I was just fucking horrified. It did not make sense, at all. They had plenty of food and water, plenty of little snacks, a nice brotherly dynamic, I mean I didn't even get regular play fighting with these four guys - they were perfectly pleasant, sweet, brothers. And then I find that. So for weeks, I was still in shock, but I forced myself to monitor them AGGRESSIVELY. I would just sit in there, staring, observing any weird behavior, did a huge cleaning of the cage, searched for any sign of parasites or something that could have caused this.... nothing. But after a couple weeks, I noticed two of the brothers developing bald patches on their arms and chest. So I thought.... okay, maybe something is spreading, maybe something is happening here that isn't brutal cannibalism.

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So.... since then, I have lost all three remaining brothers, PLUS another rat who had escaped from his cage late at night, and now HIS brother - two brothers that were across the room from the other cage - is balding on his back. They are all succumbing the same way. Losing hair, extremely sudden, no signs of other illness, and it just looks so, so grotesque. They all have varying levels of hair loss, and the original death was 10000% the worst, but all had at least a few patches of balding. I'm sure there's other details I'm forgetting, but that's the gist, and I have no idea what to do other than wait for a vet to see this last remaining boy affected by the invisible illness.

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I can't stress enough, other than the balding and weird tail shrinking, there is NOTHING else to go off of. It's why it took me so long to connect everything. The remaining brothers seemed fine, except for the weird balding on the arms and chest, but now in hindsight, it's obvious the one who escaped had clearly consumed some poop or something from the brothers across the room, became infected, died, and passed it onto his brother. Sorry if that's all confusing, there's a lot of rats involved. Does anyone have ANY guesses as to what this is? What disease spreads this way? What parasite or infection or whatever could cause this in my rats? (All other rats in that room are 100% fine, it's only the ones that have had any contact with the Patient 0 or his brothers)