Small litters?? *forgive the poor picture quality*

[Melody]

I made a post the other day about a pregnant rat I picked up who I was concerned about because she couldn't get down from her hammock. It looked like she still had about another week give or take until she gave birth since she had a rather small baby bump. Well yesterday day evening while I was getting ready for work she gave birth to five fat and healthy babies(one of which I already fed off). I'm just a little confused as to why this litter was so small? I've heard that older females usually have small litters but this female doesn't look or act old to me... If anything she looks really young(kinda on the small side.) She seems like a very experienced mother though. I've had females who had there first litter in my care and I can always tell a new mother. Maybe it's because of her size? Like I said, the babies are all doing well and are very healthy so it's okay. If anything they seem to be growing bigger at a faster rate since there's not much competition for milk. However I do not want to breed her again if this is due to age.... what do you guys think?

http://i1252.photobucket.com/albums/...download-2.jpg

[Melody]

http://i1252.photobucket.com/albums/...download-2.jpg

[Tzeentch]

My female is young and smaller than my male. Her first litter last week was only 4 pups. Everyone is healthy.
I was shocked as my previous female had litters of 19 and 21.
I'm sure then next one will be more.

[dillan2020]

Could be it was a back to back litter for her. I've noticed sometimes if you don't pull the male and the female becomes pregnant right after giving birth the next litter will be very small. I've had as small as one and 2 pinky litters when this happened before.

[MootWorm]

My girl's first litter was only 6. But they were easily three times the size of normal pinks. They grew super fast and were fully weaned at 3 weeks. She just dropped her second litter of 11, so I wouldn't write your girl off yet.

[E71000]

i had a young female give me 2 and no she did not have more and eat them she didnt look prgo at all

[Melody]

Thanks everybody. She seems to be taking care of them all just fine, and they're all growing at such a fast rate. huh I funny that I'm hearing about some many first litters being the smallest... All my past females first litters where always pretty darn big. Hopefully next litters to come will pull in larger numbers