How big are your litters?

[Expensive hobby]

What's going on everyone. Just checking to see sort of for fun, how big are your rat litters? I average around 12-18.

This mama had a litter of 21! That's my biggest so far. She's only about 250g too. My minimum breeder female size.

Anyhow here she is and her litter after cleaning their tub in a freedom breeder 927.





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[MisterKyte]

12-18 is pretty average to me but I have a few related females that tend to have 18-20 regularly. Largest litter I ever got was 23 but the mother was older and ended up abandoning five of the pups because it was more than she could handle. :/

[Kat_Dog]

I've had 6 litters so far with an average of 10-14. I had 2 with 4 in the beginning, but one u changed food, I started having more

Excited to see what comes in the future!


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[creatism]

I've been at this for over a yr or so, my moms average, 14-18 with the largest being over 20. I am amazed with how much I'm enjoying raising my own rodents!!


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[tommyanunnaki]

I am a firm believer that larger litters are NOT better.

I would much rather get 10-12 pups from every female every month than have a female spit out 18-20 pups, lose six, and then not have another litter for 6-8 weeks.

I select all of my replacement animals from litters where the number of pups fall in line with what I am looking for.

[sorraia]

My litters are pretty typically right around 12 babies. I personally prefers lightly smaller litters, like 6-8 is the perfect size in my opinion. At that number, the mom has no problem feeding everyone, and they grow quickly and are quite chubby. Larger litters are more likely to have higher mortality if the female can't feed everyone, especially if the mom is smaller in size or younger.

[Nussman]

Mine are usually between 12-15. Largest I've ever had was 19; I use small cat litter boxes in my birthing rack and usually put two pregnant females in each tub. I've found that they will help each other out and nurse both litters back and forth. It seems to improve survival on the larger litters this way .

[MrLang]

I average around 8 - 15. I'm also selecting for moms that have around 12 babies as the mortality rate is lower and they grow fatter faster and the moms have litters more regularly.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

On average 14, biggest litters have been 18 and 19

[Rhasputin]

Anyone talking about growth rates in smaller litters being higher is 100% correct! In the show business (well this is talking about mice specifically, but it transfers to rats, and ASFs also), we take litters down to 6 or less, and when compared to babies from litters 7+ they grow practically twice as fast, I would estimate 40% faster size increase. And they grow up to be healthier (and probably more nutritious!) mice with larger bodies and more fat and muscle.

Also, if you're looking for plenty of big pups for feeders, male pups grow faster than female pups. If you can tell the difference early on, and you're breeding strictly for feeders, it might not be a bad idea to keep more male babies around if you take out any pinkies for feeding to another critter.