Rat mothers fighting over babies?

[dsmalex97]

I had like 4 females which two were actual mothers, and i came home and 2 of them were ripped up pretty bad, I fed them off to a couple of my smaller snakes. I removed all the mothers that didn't actually have a littler, and left the two. Now the two are huddled over one litter!! I seperated the other litter of smaller pinks but they seem to be neglecting them now. Anyone have any ideas on what I should do??

[SnakeGirl3]

I'd say just separate any females that you notice fighting together. Generally, female rats will help one another rather than fight, though an occasional fight will pop up from time to time. It's typical of them to "squabble" somewhat though--they have to establish a pecking order in their colony; serious fights like the one you mentioned: definitely separate them. Minor squabbles: let them be.

Did the moms put the smaller pinks back with the other babies? Or have you moved them to an entirely different enclosure? Most of the moms I have will gather all of the babies together in one pile, though if there's a large amount, they'll separate them into two piles themselves. If I have pups and pinks in the same tub, though, I remove the pinks and use surrogate moms from another tub that also has pinks. I've noticed that the larger pups will shove the pinks down to the bottom of the baby pile, and the pinks can't get any milk.

I'd say if the rats really are completely ignoring your smaller pinks, try a surrogate mom if you have one available in another enclosure (just make sure she's had babies fairly recently, and that she still has milk). If that rat refuses to care for them as well, then most likely there is something wrong with them that us humans can't see, but the rats will know and will take matters into their own hands so that the healthy babies have a better chance. No sense in feeding babies who probably aren't going to make it anyway; that's the law of the jungle, and the rats typically stick to it well.

[dsmalex97]

I'd say just separate any females that you notice fighting together. Generally, female rats will help one another rather than fight, though an occasional fight will pop up from time to time. It's typical of them to "squabble" somewhat though--they have to establish a pecking order in their colony; serious fights like the one you mentioned: definitely separate them. Minor squabbles: let them be.

Did the moms put the smaller pinks back with the other babies? Or have you moved them to an entirely different enclosure? Most of the moms I have will gather all of the babies together in one pile, though if there's a large amount, they'll separate them into two piles themselves. If I have pups and pinks in the same tub, though, I remove the pinks and use surrogate moms from another tub that also has pinks. I've noticed that the larger pups will shove the pinks down to the bottom of the baby pile, and the pinks can't get any milk.

I'd say if the rats really are completely ignoring your smaller pinks, try a surrogate mom if you have one available in another enclosure (just make sure she's had babies fairly recently, and that she still has milk). If that rat refuses to care for them as well, then most likely there is something wrong with them that us humans can't see, but the rats will know and will take matters into their own hands so that the healthy babies have a better chance. No sense in feeding babies who probably aren't going to make it anyway; that's the law of the jungle, and the rats typically stick to it well.

Thanks so much for the detailed reply really appreciate it!

I just got done making a new bin so I can seperate them, and I don't know if there taking care of the smaller ones yet I'm going to home to where they are now. When I left they were in there own pile which I made for them because when I was seperating all them they all kinda threw bedding everywhere so I just put the smaller pinks with one another, and the others as well. But it was weird because there both sitting on one pile? The other mom wasn't getting too mad, but would occasionally get frustrated and bite the other one. Hopefully I will go home and they will be doing there thing again. Also, one of them had a nice size chunk of skin missing on the side, it wasn't bleeding reallly bad, but looks kinda gross. Is that something that will heal? Or should I feed him off too?

[SnakeGirl3]

If it's not a major cut/wound, it will most likely heal on it's own. Definitely keep an eye on it and if it gets worse, you might want to clean the wound, take it to a vet, or kill it off. But if it isn't bleeding, I wouldn't stress over it too much. It may just be a wound from one of the minor squabbles, and again, all rats will do that to some extent in order to establish their pecking order. There's no guarantee that using a new male won't give you the same issue. He may also get the same "battle scar," so to speak, while he is figuring out his spot in the pecking order of the colony.

The moms that seem to fight over babies: it might be best to separate them. Perhaps those two particular rats have issues with one another. Try putting other females with them. If they don't have any problems with the other females, let them be as long as they are producing babies for you. However, if they still have issues with other females in the colony, it might be best to kill/feed them off to keep the peace with your rats.

Best of luck!

Also, if you are new to rat keeping/breeding, search megacolon in rats online. Definitiely something you'll want to know about.

[dsmalex97]

I added another female making it a trio now. I haven't heard them fighting so I think were good in terms of fighting now. Now it seems like the one mother has taken on both litters. There are some that are seperated in other corners that they tend to, but the one mom seems to be taking on most of both. The cut on the little one seems to be getting a little better but I still got my eye on it. It doesn't bleed but its sad to see him cut up like that, if it doesn't improve once he starts growing fur then I think I'm gonna feed him to my baby ball.

How many females would I need to keep a collection of 10 snakes fed every week. I read that sticky, I think i should have 12 but I still don't know if I get it completely. If someone could clear this up it would be great.

[SnakeGirl3]

I'd say somewhere between 10-12 females would be good. I have 10 females and 2 males myself (and 11 snakes of various sizes). My colony is just getting going good, and I'm still feeding a few baby snakes that I have for sale as well, but I'm able to kill off and freeze some rats to feed my larger snakes, as well as having rat pups to feed to the younger ones. But if I need to, I can always save a couple more females from the litters to use as breeders if I get to needing some more girls.

[dsmalex97]

So how long would you say it took for you to have a constant supply?

Right now I have 7 females, 3 of them that were from a litter I just had, but being that they were female I just kept them to use as breeders. I also have 2 males. I'm just starting to get into this so I didn't want to start out with 12 from the get go. What I would like to do is just get a bunch of other females(until I have about a dozen) that are ready to breed, and start following that schedule that was on the sticky. I'm not sure if I get it. I'm just trying to figure out how to get it going the best. Any advice or just a decent walkthrough would be awesooooooooooome! I'm gonna go read that sticky again and see if I could get some more out of it.

[dsmalex97]

sorry I just read it again.

In a nutshell, I want to pair the male every two weeks to a different female. Now could I just start a new bin with one female, throw a male in for two weeks, add another female, wait two weeks, add another, and then start a new tub? So pretty much just having trio's in each bin, but starting with one female, and just adding females until I hit three in each bin(4 trios after all is said and done)?

So it should take like 6 months until I start having the right amount correct?

[dsmalex97]

If someone could chime in and lemme know if thats correct would be greaaaat!!

[SnakeGirl3]

So how long would you say it took for you to have a constant supply?

Right now I have 7 females, 3 of them that were from a litter I just had, but being that they were female I just kept them to use as breeders. I also have 2 males. I'm just starting to get into this so I didn't want to start out with 12 from the get go. What I would like to do is just get a bunch of other females(until I have about a dozen) that are ready to breed, and start following that schedule that was on the sticky. I'm not sure if I get it. I'm just trying to figure out how to get it going the best. Any advice or just a decent walkthrough would be awesooooooooooome! I'm gonna go read that sticky again and see if I could get some more out of it.

sorry I just read it again.

In a nutshell, I want to pair the male every two weeks to a different female. Now could I just start a new bin with one female, throw a male in for two weeks, add another female, wait two weeks, add another, and then start a new tub? So pretty much just having trio's in each bin, but starting with one female, and just adding females until I hit three in each bin(4 trios after all is said and done)?

So it should take like 6 months until I start having the right amount correct?

Yeah, I'm actually still trying to get a constant supply. I got into rats about 4 or 5 months ago myself (and thankfully have a local friend mentoring me that bred them for years), and I've had a lot of baby snakes to feed as well this year that have taken a lot of my smaller rats (so obviously those rats didn't have the opportunity to grow up). I'm finally getting to the point of having a few extra larger rats to freeze and save for my larger snakes, especially now that many of my larger snakes have voluntarily gone off feed. When I started, I had adult rats (breeding size) but nothing else. No babies, and no extra small rats. So I started from scratch basically. And I'll be happy when they are producing enough to keep my snakes fed. LOL Hopefully it won't be much longer.

You can house multiple females with one male (many recommend a 3-4 females:1 male ratio, and there's a few that do 5 females per male). It's been a bit since I looked over that schedule, but I was thinking you want to breed one female every week? Rat gestation period is approximately 3 weeks, so if you add an additional female every week, you should have weekly litters, and when the first mom is ready to have babies, you're pulling her and adding a new female to the tub to breed.

I'm still housing 5 females with one male 24/7 while I'm trying to stock up. That way the moms are almost ready to have more babies once they get their first litter weaned. Not that that's necessarily good for the females, though. Once I can get some stocked up in the freezer, I plan to pull some females out for a good long break before deciding to retire them or use them as breeders again. Then maybe I can start actually cycling them and giving the moms time off between litters. But a good lab block rodent feed will really help the moms put weight back on after back-to-back births. Even they way I'm doing things now, I have many 12-baby litters back to back. And the biggest majority survive (though you will typically lose a few along the way). I've had some litters where all 12 survive, and plenty of litters where 10-11 survive. I'm hoping that once I can start cycling the moms to give them breaks, I'll have a few larger litters, though.

Hope this helps you out some!