Need help sexing baby rats!

[cchardwick]

OK, so I'm in way over my head now LOL. Just got into the snake breeding thing and so far have an ARS rack with 14 snakes and a few critter cages (5 gallon / 10 gallon / 20 gallon / 40 gallon) with some mice, African Soft Fur rats, and now just got my first bunch of 'regular' rats. I'm trying all three to see what I like best (I like them all right now!). So I figured since this is a rat forum I'd post a few photos of my new baby rats that I just picked up today. I got seven of them because the guy at the pet store couldn't tell me the difference in sex and I figure with seven I should have some males and females. I can always feed off the others to my adult male Australian Woma python, he is a beast! So I just pulled these babies from the mom, I'm hoping they are old enough to wean, correct? Their eyes are wide open and they seem like they should be able to eat food just fine, the only problem was that they came from a rack system and were too small to get to the food and water and still nursing from mom. Here are a few photos, can you tell me which ones are male and female? How many males / females per cage would you set up? Can I run all seven together in one big cage? So many questions, I'm such a newbie!!!

I'm just guessing, but are #3 and #7 males and the rest females????

Baby Rat #1:


Baby Rat #2:


Baby Rat #3:


Baby Rat #4:


Baby Rat #5:


Baby Rat #6:


Baby Rat #7:

[PhoenixGate]

I used to sex mice, don't have any experience with rats. It looks to me like #1 is female and the rest are male.

http://www.afrma.org/sexing101.htm

[chilliscale]

246 are female for sure. 1 looks female. You should be able to see nipples on females. And the distance between vent and genitals is greater on males

[Mephibosheth1]

Yeah compare the anogenital distance. Close ones are females; far ones are males.

Based on the pix, 1, 2, 4, and 6 are female. You'll get better with time, trust me

As for weaning age, 2-3 weeks is when I usually pulled mine when I was breeding. Definitely not past 3 weeks, cuz that's when they become sexually active.

[cchardwick]

Thank you!!! That's actually perfect, I should be able to separate them out with one male and two females and have two groups and feed the extra male to my Woma python. The guy at the pet store who sold them to me thought they were all females because he couldn't see the testicles, he didn't realize they were too young. Obviously he didn't know what he was doing (either did I). The same guy picked out a bunch of mice for me that were supposed to be all females and one male, turned out they were all males LOL. I'm feeding them to my hungry snakes now HA. I have a bumble bee ball python who only eats live. I didn't realize his mistake until I went to Petco and got one male and three female mice, after a bit of study I could tell them apart. None of my other mice looked like the females from Petco LOLOL. Petco doesn't sell female rats so I don't have anything to go by, I'm still a bit confused by it all and can hardly tell the difference. The #2 and #4 are half white so that narrows it down a bit for me, at least I know those two are females now.

[chilliscale]

Big rat balls are hard to miss. They really start hanging around 6 weeka

[Caspian]

2-3 weeks is way too early for rats to be weaned. 5-6 weeks of age at removal from the dam is recommended. I pull males at 5 weeks, and leave females in with the dam until it's time to breed her again. 2-3 weeks is when their eyes first open, not when they become sexually mature. They haven't even started eating solid food, really for another week or so, and then it's a supplement to milk.

It's hard to tell the gender with those pictures, for me. General rule of thumb - if there's a bare strip between the anus and the clitoris, it's female. If there's hair between the anus and the penis, it's male. Males and females will need to be separate, after 5 weeks of age, but make sure that you have at least two of each together. Rats are social animals. They need at least one other rat in with them for company.

[artgecko]

Agree with the poster above about weaning age. I would supplement yours with some soy or almond milk for another week or two just in case they aren't totally comfortable with solid foods. You can soak lab blocks, oats, etc. in the soy milk and give it to them as a "porridge". You can also give them boiled egg for added protein and they will eat vegg as well.

They look maybe 4 weeks to me... You can leave them together another couple weeks (males with the females) then separate by gender. It is not safe to breed females until around 6 months of age... I can't remember the weight some go by.

[Caspian]

Agree with the poster above about weaning age. I would supplement yours with some soy or almond milk for another week or two just in case they aren't totally comfortable with solid foods. You can soak lab blocks, oats, etc. in the soy milk and give it to them as a "porridge". You can also give them boiled egg for added protein and they will eat vegg as well.

They look maybe 4 weeks to me... You can leave them together another couple weeks (males with the females) then separate by gender. It is not safe to breed females until around 6 months of age... I can't remember the weight some go by.

Females should be at least 250 grams.

[Fraido]

2-3 weeks is way too early for rats to be weaned. 5-6 weeks of age at removal from the dam is recommended. I pull males at 5 weeks, and leave females in with the dam until it's time to breed her again. 2-3 weeks is when their eyes first open, not when they become sexually mature. They haven't even started eating solid food, really for another week or so, and then it's a supplement to milk.

It's hard to tell the gender with those pictures, for me. General rule of thumb - if there's a bare strip between the anus and the clitoris, it's female. If there's hair between the anus and the penis, it's male. Males and females will need to be separate, after 5 weeks of age, but make sure that you have at least two of each together. Rats are social animals. They need at least one other rat in with them for company.

I'm glad someone corrected the weaning age! I was worried it wouldn't be.

Something I've noticed is that if you hold them upside down by the tails like that to sex them, the males may suck their balls in a bit and make it more difficult to tell. I just hold them in my hand and raise the tail, though that is probably difficult to get a photo of.. I recommend reading up on sexing pinkies. They're incredibly easy once you get the hang of it, compare the spaces between siblings and the difference will be very clear at that age. At least that way you'll know when you go to wean that x amount should be male and x amount should be female. I can sex from day one, never thought I'd be able to, surprisingly easy!

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