Yes but in reality is not because they are a waste of food, the biologist found that are some patterns that make fathers eat or kill their childs.
These reasons are:
-Stress: highly motivated by Humans, when some mothers or father get stressed they tend to kill their child,there a lot of theories of what this "stress" mean in a more human interpretation, but for now we will say "stress"
-Illness: It is one of the common factors, the parents in someway they can feel when their offspring is ill, so they kill/eat them for sanitary reasons, better one ill out, than all the offspring.
-Not enough food: This one is more common on Birds than mammals, when the food is low, they can "feel"how many of their offspring can take care. The rest is killed or throw out the nest. It is a brutal scene when you see how parents kill their childs for that.Here is an example:
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-First-time parents: Well, I think you can know what this mean. Accidents happen.
-Dominance/Genes: This is more common on Mammals, in fact on the herds. An example are the lions: The father tends to kill offspring that is not of him, to make the lioness in heat and mate her again and have "his" offspring.On reptiles we can see the crocodiles example. The mother will kill anyone and anything that goes near the nest, even his own father.On birds at the contraryit is a pair of birds who kills the offspring of another "pair" to invade and get the nest. For example the hawks.
-Copulating reasons: This happens more on animals that are "lonely" by nature. For example Russian Hamsters are "lonely" they are only together when they are from the same litter and young, The rest of the time they tend to be "lonely". When they mate, the male would kill the litter if he is "near enough" to mate with the female again. This happens when novice owners mix male-female without knowing what would happen next. The breeders are trying to modificate the behaviour to be more like "rats" But that is Humanity for us.
And that is enough for starters.
Offtopic: When you try to gert in the baron house but the Butler know you would use the cave:
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