Moving the males

[moonlightgdess]

I'm attempting to run my rat tubs 1.2 (depending on if both girls get pregnant), but my question is do you remove your males from the tubs when the pups are born? I'm not very familiar with the pack aspect of rats, I don't know if the male will hurt the babies or not. And for those running 1.2, what happens if only one of your girls is pregnant? Do you separate all three of them?

[RobNJ]

I keep them all together all the time. If any, male or female, eat babies, they get fed off or frozen.

[youbeyouibei]

I've done both as far as keeping the males in with the females with litters and taking them out. I currently take my males out when the females drop their litters or are otherwise visibly pregnant. I've not had any issues with males eating or hurting the litters, I just do it to give my females a break from being bred. For me personally, I've noticed that the litters tend to stay smaller and develop slower when the mom is immediately bred again by the male after having given birth (postpartum pregnancy). I have enough breeders that I can cycle my males through giving the .2 per tub a rotation off, so to speak, by having other females that I can pair with the males to allow the females that had delivered to raise their pups to weaning size while the other tubs of females are being bred and then vice versa, if that makes any sense at all, lol!

There's no hard or fast rule to say you can or can't, it just depends on your needs and your animals. If you have a male that's eating babies, I'd feed him off were it me, same for a female. I've had first time moms eat a litter and they get one more chance and if it continues, they're snake food. Figure out what you need as far as production and what size and then that will give you some idea as to whether or not you'd want to be breeding your females back-to-back on their litters. You'll wear them out a lot faster and they won't produce as long doing that, but it can be done. Try it both ways and see what you like better...it definitely adds to the hassle to have a separate tub to house the males when they aren't breeding but again, it works for me in my situation so all I could say is try it and see what works for you. Good luck!

[PghBall]

I leave my males in with the females and have not had issues with them harming the pups. I've found that they are quite tolerable of them and often see them sleeping with a pile of little fuzzballs as the pups get older.

[LotusCorvus]

I remove the male only if I'm planning on giving the females a break after the coming litter (especially for females that are getting older, or I've gotten attached to), otherwise I've had more problems with females getting into tug-o-war matches over babies than I've had with males killing babies. Then again, my males tend to be big ol' softies, lol.

[Johnny84]

I leave all my 1.2 ratio all together....they all cuddle togehter as they become pups from pinkies! Haven't had any issues thus far!!