Slow production

[groki21]

I bought my 1.2 colony on august 2nd. I got real lucky and brought home a pregnant mother that gave birth the next day to 11 babies. I fed off all babies except for one female. The original male I got wasnt fully grown when I picked him up. He was around the med rat range(180ish grams). He has since grown really big, but hasnt been getting the job done. I know that one girl in my 1.3 group is capable of having babies, so is it the male or just not enough time? I'm not really being impatient i'm just wondering if this is normal. I dont know how old the females are(except the one baby I kept, shes now ( a month and a half and 148grams), but I do know that one mother recently gave birth to 11 babies, so she cant be past her breeding peek. I often see the male doing his thing to the females but nothing has happened yet. What do you guys think?
A. More time together(they've only had a month and 12 days)
B. Get different Male
C. Switch out the grown female that hasnt given birth

[snakesRkewl]

Rats go into heat every 5 or so days so if they didn't get the deed done the first cycle then 5 or 6 more days would go by before another heat cycle.
So say 12 days go by, then it takes 23 or so days to drop a litter.

I'd say you should have some bellies popping out soon or he's not being accepted by the females or the females are bred out.

If they don't show preggo by weeks end...
My guess would be he's smaller and they aren't accepting him.

I placed a young male in with 4 multi-proven females last week, he's ready to breed but they beat the crap out of him because they could, lol.
I pulled him and put in an older huge male and now they are breeding, he beat them down and said what's up, now they sleep in a big pile and alls well.

So yes a smaller male can be cast off as not good enough by the females
Doesn't mean he won't be a breeder, just that he's probably a bit small for their liking.

[groki21]

Rats go into heat every 5 or so days so if they didn't get the deed done the first cycle then 5 or 6 more days would go by before another heat cycle.
So say 12 days go by, then it takes 23 or so days to drop a litter.

I'd say you should have some bellies popping out soon or he's not being accepted by the females or the females are bred out.

If they don't show preggo by weeks end...
My guess would be he's smaller and they aren't accepting him.

I placed a young male in with 4 multi-proven females last week, he's ready to breed but they beat the crap out of him because they could, lol.
I pulled him and put in an older huge male and now they are breeding, he beat them down and said what's up, now they sleep in a big pile and alls well.

So yes a smaller male can be cast off as not good enough by the females
Doesn't mean he won't be a breeder, just that he's probably a bit small for their liking.

that sounds about right. When I first got them, he was medium size, and everytime he would try to mount them they would put him on his back. He is now by far the biggest rat in the bin. I dont know if hes reached his full adult size but he definately outsizes all the females. When he mounts them now, he does his thing and then licks himself. I guess i'll keep him with them for about another week or two and if I dont see anything i'll try to get an even bigger male. Thanks for the suggestions though, greatly appreciated

[BAMReptiles]

dont replace him, if hes doing that its only a matter of time, just be patient and wait it out

[groki21]

dont replace him, if hes doing that its only a matter of time, just be patient and wait it out

got ya, i've had the rats for a little over a month and hes been successfully mounting them(without being put on his back) for I'd say around 2 weeks or so. I'll wait it out and see what he can do.

[groki21]

Update, just wanted to update people who gave advice. Exactly 3 weeks after this post the next mother gave birth to 16 pups. And about a week after that, the baby that I had held back from the first litter, even though she was only 2 months old, gave birth to 11 pups. Then the original mother 2 weeks after that gave birth again to only 2 pups(shes getting old). So my production finally took off. So four litters and i'm averaging a little around 9 or so babies each litter. I would be averaging a little over 12 but one of my rats is getting pretty old. Thanks to all for the great advice

[BAMReptiles]

you might as well axe that one thats only poppin out 2 pups, i sure would

[snakesRkewl]

you might as well axe that one thats only poppin out 2 pups, i sure would

If you know for sure it's old then feed her or whatever, but I've had middle age moms recover and drop large litters after having only 2/3 babies in a litter.

[groki21]

i'm not exactly sure how old she is, being that she was bought from a petstore and already about full size. Her first litter with me was 10 babies and the next one was 2. And all of my snakes are hatchlings. From about 100grams to my biggest being about 450 grams. Not sure wat to do with her, but I would like all my breeders to be young and at their best.

[snakesRkewl]

I'd give her one last shot since your not sure of her age.

Make sure you hold back and raise your future breeders so you do have young breeders.
Try craigslist for fancy pet quality dumbo rats, they are pretty easy to find in my area.
Many of them have been selectively bred and "can" make better breeders, not always but with pet store rats you have no clue.