First litter, all dead in one day

[Aste88]

Since my collection has grown to a dozen snakes and will probably double by the end of the year (new rack) I decided to try breeding rats.

A couple of months ago I went to the store and bought 4 medium rats (3 female and one male) and a rabbit cage (80x60x30 cm). I decided to start small and simple to learn the basis with a low initial investment and to test the feasibility (I live in an apartment).

Long story short, nothing happened for 2 months until yesterday I finally found pinkies in the cage. The mother didn't seem to have prepared a nest and they were in two groups with a couple scattered around. She also wasn't staying close to them. Unfortunately I was late for work and left in a hurry. By the time I came back wanting to move them to another cage they were all dead, half buried under the substrate, without any sign of injuries. I'm guessing either they weren't fed by the mother or were trampled.

I'm not sure what I've done wrong, I thought litters could coexist with the colony and females would help each other.

Also the other 2 females aren't showing any pregnancy sign.

[SamO]

Sorry to hear about your lost litter. 1.3 colonies can do fine but maybe not with their first litter.

For me, we like to move females to a birthing cage, especially with a first time mom. That's not the only way to do it. You'll have to find what works for you and your rats. Don't give up!

[wolfy-hound]

I do harem style and they do fine, but sometimes a first litter will be lost due to moms who don't know what to do. I usually start a new group with at least one experienced mom. She teaches the new moms. When you don't have any experienced moms, you might lose some babies.

For what it's worth, babies do often end up in multiple locations, but she should have had some sort of nest. Next litter should be better. If not, try getting an experienced mom.

Moving a mom to a nursery cage also works great. It's easier to give the mom a break after the litter that way too.

[cchardwick]

Do you have wire on the bottom? I'd probably cover it and put down an inch or so of pine shavings. Is it in a cold area? You may want to keep it in a heated area. I've lost a few mouse and ASF babies from cannibalism, never had rats just ignore their young. I never bred in a group either, maybe that with new moms could be the issue. Seems like the new moms have the most trouble until they figure out what is going on.

[Aste88]

Thanks! I'll try to see if I can get an experienced female.

Hopefully next one will go better

[cchardwick]

When I first started breeding mice the first batch ate all their babies and some people on this forum said to cull them all. I never had a problem with batches after that with those mice. I also started separating all my mice in male / female pairs, that seems to work the best. For all my rats I've been separating females and that works pretty good, not really any losses with babies, but it takes up a lot of space and when I put them back in with other rats there is fighting for a day and a 'bad attitude' for a few days until they get used to each other again. Now I'm trying a harem approach with one male and three females, we will see how things go, but my production should be through the roof with that approach. If I have problems I may try cutting back to one male and two females or just a male female pair.

Another thing I've been doing with my mice is changing out their hides all the time, I use a 'snake cave' when they are ready to have babies. It works fantastic because it contains all the babies and keeps them from getting lost in the substrate. They used to get lost all over the place and would die because the mom couldn't find them. When they start to open their eyes I switch up the hide to a walk out cave so they can go out and find the food and start eating on their own as early as possible so I can wean them sooner. When I clean cages every week I go through and change out the hides. These hides are way to small for rats but maybe you can come up with something similar. Also, I'd probably keep the substrate to a minimum, like an inch or so. I used to keep it thick in my rat tanks and sometimes they would dig down into it and accidently bury all the babies.

Also, if you double your collection you'll need a lot of rodents. Do you plan on breeding? If so you will want to feed most twice a week, that's about 80 rodents a month for a collection of 20 snakes!

I use something like this to contain all the babies when they give birth and up to when their eyes are open, probably too small for a rat but works great for mice:



I use this hide for babies that open their eyes. I also have a bigger size hide and use those for my large batches of babies as they grow:


I also use glass 'critter cages', sort of like an aquarium with a screen top. I really like them, especially since I can see what is going on with all my rodents with just a quick glance around the room, if any are fighting, sick, dead, etc. Kind of a pain to clean and pretty heavy for the big ones but I don't think I'd go to anything else at this point.

[cchardwick]

Ooop, my math was off, if you feed 20 snakes twice a week that's 40 a week, or 170 rodents a month! No wonder I'm having problems keeping up with my snakes, my math was off LOL. I think on average I get about 10 babies per month per rodent as long as you keep the male in with the female at all times, so that would mean 17 female rodents to keep up with that at the minimum. Probably better to have a few more than that and fill your freezer with the extra and the occasional non-breeder or replacement of your breeders. I guess a good rule of thumb would be to have one female breeder rodent per snake. Don't forget about grow out tanks too LOL. I also found that most will eat 2 or 3 rodents within an hour or so, an easy way to get rid of an excess of rodents. I have so many rodents right now I have nightmares of them getting out and getting out of control and destroying the house HA! Now that I did the math I may not have enough mice, I may try to switch up my mice into one male and two female groups to crank things up!

[Juicebøx]

I've been breeding rats for almost 4 years now, so I'd like to help as best I can, and I wanted to address a few things.

Do you have wire on the bottom? I'd probably cover it and put down an inch or so of pine shavings. Is it in a cold area? You may want to keep it in a heated area. I've lost a few mouse and ASF babies from cannibalism, never had rats just ignore their young. I never bred in a group either, maybe that with new moms could be the issue. Seems like the new moms have the most trouble until they figure out what is going on.

First, if there is a "wire bottom" you DEFINITELY need to cover it. I would suggest getting some floor laminate, or something similar to cover the floor. Laminate is great because it's really easy to clean. Rats feet are not designed to walk on wire, and they will develop a "club-foot" like issue that is not pretty, and will eventually make it so they can't get around (like, literally just sit in one place and starve to death). The best way I can explain this, would be to have you go stand on an extension ladder for 2-3 hours... and then notice how SORE your feet are. Now, imagine standing on that extension ladder all day, every day... If the bottom of the cage is wire, find something to cover it with ASAP.

Second, I would not recommend trying to start a colony with rats from a feeder bin. Rats learn how to "be a rat" from their mothers... and most rats you get from a feeder-bin have been separated from their mothers WAY too early. Obviously, if the rat is going to be fed to a snake, this doesn't matter, but since you are trying to get these rats to have babies of their own, they don't have any idea what to do. Rats are very social, and learn everything they need to know from each other. If you are really going to start producing your own feeders, I would suggest getting rid of this current group, and spending the $10-20 (or even $30) per breeder, so that you can get well-started females. Is this necessary? No... but you will find that it helps TREMENDOUSLY.

My first rats were bought from a woman who breeds rats solely to feed to her snakes. They were great, but I would deal with the issue of opening a tub, everyone piles to the back, and I have to dig through a pile of rats to find the feeder I need. After about a year of this, my wife and I decided to get some QUALITY breeding stock from a pet-breeder. These people literally play with every baby, every day from the time they are born. We didn't cull anything... just added in 4-5 females (and 1-2 males, iirc), and put them into our breeding program (after a 3 week quarantine). The difference is night-and-day.

Now when I open a tub, they all rush to the FRONT of the tub. Everyone is coming out to greet me... when I go to pick them up, they don't scramble to get away, I can hold them without them trying to leap to freedom, etc. I will try to post some pictures when I get home about how to test for pet-temperament. Things that you should be able to do to any rat in your setup. Any rat that doesn't pass the "temperament test" is not bred, and is fed off. Basically, when they are babies, you scruff them (like a mother cat carries her babies), and they should hang still. When they are adults (too large to scruff), you hold them under the shoulder, and they should let you just hold them like that. If they are squirming and fighting, they are culled. This temperament is genetic, so while you may be able to "hold them everyday when they are babies" to try and help, starting with good quality breeders from the start will make a huge difference.

note: Please don't tell rat-people "I breed for health and temperament..." because that is literally the absolute LEAST that you should be doing. In the rat community, there are "standards" they look for. Head size, head shape, should width, body length, tail length (in relation to body), etc. Saying to a "rat person" that you breed for health and temperament is like me saying, "I breed snakes to make sure they survive."

... I also started separating all my mice in male / female pairs, that seems to work the best. For all my rats I've been separating females and that works pretty good, not really any losses with babies, but it takes up a lot of space and when I put them back in with other rats there is fighting for a day and a 'bad attitude' for a few days until they get used to each other again. Now I'm trying a harem approach with one male and three females, we will see how things go, but my production should be through the roof with that approach. If I have problems I may try cutting back to one male and two females or just a male female pair.

This can be a win/lose scenario. You will most likely increase your initial production, but you are going to run through females like CRAZY doing it this way. Female rats can get pregnant within an hour of giving birth... so she can become pregnant and give birth to new babies while she is still nursing her previous litter. Rat gestation is 21 days, and pups shouldn't be weaned until 4 weeks at the earliest (we typically go to 5 weeks). Not only will your female burn out quickly, the quality of the feeders may suffer.

The reason I started breeding my own feeders in the first place, is that I couldn't justify paying $3-10 per rat, for rats that looked like CRAP. The feeders I was buying were under weight, looked skinny and dirty. There were times I wanted to wash the rats before I put them in with my snakes, because of how disgusting they looked. I would suggest doing exactly what you are doing with the harem setup, and after 2-ish weeks, pull the male out. This way, the females can all give birth together, and you have one tub for the male. Allow your females to raise the rats to ~4-5 weeks, wean the babies... and give the girls some time "to themselves". You should notice a bump in quality that way. If your boys start fighting, one solution is to keep all your females in pairs (or trios), and keep your boys together. Take a boy out, put him in with the ladies for a day or two, and then put him back with the guys. This will allow the boys to "stay friends" (because males can be VERY territorial), and your girls get some "action time" and some "girl time". Once you see the baby-bump on your girls, just leave the male in with the others.

An important part of this is to raise the boys together from 4-5 weeks. If you try to take full size males and just throw them together, you can end up with some pretty bloody fights. I had to cull one boy due to damage from a fight, and another boy earned the name "1/2 sack" because he lost a testicle in a fight. If the boys grow up together... they should be fine. As you add more males to your setup, add them when they are 4-5 weeks old, and the other males shouldn't bother them (because the babies know they are at the bottom of the chain).

Another thing I've been doing with my mice is changing out their hides all the time, I use a 'snake cave' when they are ready to have babies. It works fantastic because it contains all the babies and keeps them from getting lost in the substrate. They used to get lost all over the place and would die because the mom couldn't find them. When they start to open their eyes I switch up the hide to a walk out cave so they can go out and find the food and start eating on their own as early as possible so I can wean them sooner. When I clean cages every week I go through and change out the hides. These hides are way to small for rats but maybe you can come up with something similar. Also, I'd probably keep the substrate to a minimum, like an inch or so. I used to keep it thick in my rat tanks and sometimes they would dig down into it and accidently bury all the babies.

Also, if you double your collection you'll need a lot of rodents. Do you plan on breeding? If so you will want to feed most twice a week, that's about 80 rodents a month for a collection of 20 snakes!

Rats won't lose their babies in substrate. They have an incredible sense of smell, so a pup "lost in substrate" is either left there because of neglect, or on purpose. I had a mom that would push ALL of the substrate from her tub into one corner, and make a little rat-baby-volcano. It wouldn't matter how little substrate I gave her, she used it ALL. Rats (and mice) have the ability to detect things that we could never tell. They know if there is something wrong with the pup, and will allow it to die so that they can focus on the pups that are healthy. If this happens regularly I, personally, would remove that mother from the breeding program. Either there is something wrong with her, or she just isn't a good mom... and either way, I don't want that passed along into future generations.

Another thing to consider is that rats only have 12 nipples, so if they have a large litter (My largest was 21 babies from one female), they will split the babies into different piles. They do this so they can ensure that all the babies are fed. The litter of 21 was split into 3 piles, and mom would rotate around the tub feeding each group. If you have large litters, I would recommend supplementing mom's diet. We typically will give them hard boiled eggs... just boil the egg, LET IT COOL, and then give mom the entire egg... shell and all. Mom will need the protein, and the shell is good for her teeth.

I use something like this to contain all the babies when they give birth and up to when their eyes are open, probably too small for a rat but works great for mice.....

To me, this just looks like "more stuff to clean". This is just my opinion... and I don't breed mice, so I have no idea if mice need these... but for rats, I would just let them build their own nests.

I also use glass 'critter cages', sort of like an aquarium with a screen top. I really like them, especially since I can see what is going on with all my rodents with just a quick glance around the room, if any are fighting, sick, dead, etc. Kind of a pain to clean and pretty heavy for the big ones but I don't think I'd go to anything else at this point.

I see that you are using a snake rack. I would HIGHLY recommend building your own rat rack too. Just a suggestion, but it really is MUCH easier to have a large colony of rats, and clean them in a rack system. I built mine using cat litter tubs (for nursing moms) and concrete tubs for larger groups. I bought the necessary 2x4s and hardware cloth (1/2" opening), and had a friend help me rip the 2x4s into 2x2 for the framing. You can google "how to build your own rat rack" and there are quite a few great guides. Figure out what you think you'll need, and have at it.

One thing I wish someone would have told me, is to determine how many breeding pairs you think you'll need, and build your rack with 20-50% more space that that. I LOVE my rack, but I'm already at the point where I need more space... so I'm trying to decide if I should just slim down my rat colony, or build another rack.

Ooop, my math was off, if you feed 20 snakes twice a week that's 40 a week, or 170 rodents a month! No wonder I'm having problems keeping up with my snakes, my math was off LOL. I think on average I get about 10 babies per month per rodent as long as you keep the male in with the female at all times, so that would mean 17 female rodents to keep up with that at the minimum. Probably better to have a few more than that and fill your freezer with the extra and the occasional non-breeder or replacement of your breeders. I guess a good rule of thumb would be to have one female breeder rodent per snake. Don't forget about grow out tanks too LOL. I also found that most will eat 2 or 3 rodents within an hour or so, an easy way to get rid of an excess of rodents. I have so many rodents right now I have nightmares of them getting out and getting out of control and destroying the house HA! Now that I did the math I may not have enough mice, I may try to switch up my mice into one male and two female groups to crank things up!

I would not recommend feeding a ball python ONE appropriate sized prey item per week. I know that some will eat more often that this... but you just run the risk of having an obese snake. While it may help "get them up to weight" faster, the snake isn't going to be healthy, and your clutches may suffer because of it. Again, just my opinion... but a pretty common rule of thumb for ball pythons.

So with that as your number, 20 snakes would need 86.66(repeating) rats per month (20x52/12). I would suggest making sure that you can maintain something close to this number, plus hold-backs for future breeding, plus a little extra. You will find that not every female will get pregnant every time they are paired up (if you are pulling the male out).

One thing that I do with my excess rodents, is sell them on FB to other local herp-keepers. I sell mine MUCH cheaper than you would pay at a retail store, so not only does the person get a better quality rat than they would from _______ store, it's 1/3 the cost... and I don't have to worry about having a population explosion that takes over my house.

[voodoolamb]

Like juicebox, I too breed "pet quality" rats. My initial breeding stock were pricey between $25 - $50 per rat (i wanted pretty rats with rarer genetics) Though to be honest they predated my snakes. Part of the reason i got into snakes because I wanted to breed rats and needed a plan for my culls and extras.

However it was worth every penny. If I were to be into snakes first and wanted to start breeding my own feeders. I'd definitely go for the fancy schmancy rats again.

Rat bites hurt. My well socialized genetically good tempered rats have NEVER bitten me. Even when I've deserved it! When I've had a baby pull a Houdini it actually comes to me instead of a wild goose chase. I've never lost a litter. Not even my maiden girl's first go round the rodeo - they have all been excellent mothers. Very few health issues popping up as well. I have a low mortality rate amongst my kits. I think a part of it is the mums are less stressed with my messing around cleaning the cages, feeding, and being in the room - because they all actually love people. Heck plenty of times I open the door to top off the food dish and momma rat comes running up to me like "Please! Give me a break from these brats!"

Rodents stress pretty easily. Everything you can do to reduce their stress will increase their productivity. Enrichment activities, not breeding back to back, establishing trust with them - etc.

Enrichment is a major stress buster amongst rodents. My ASFs arent tame, and my first attempt at a colony was a disaster - i upped my Enrichment activities for them and had a lot better luck on the last few attempts. Gave them a wheel, more foraging activities, different things in their cage. Squabbling and stress went down and babies started popping out and were well cared for.

[Doggtyred]

Since my collection has grown to a dozen snakes and will probably double by the end of the year (new rack) I decided to try breeding rats.

A couple of months ago I went to the store and bought 4 medium rats (3 female and one male) and a rabbit cage (80x60x30 cm). I decided to start small and simple to learn the basis with a low initial investment and to test the feasibility (I live in an apartment).

Long story short, nothing happened for 2 months until yesterday I finally found pinkies in the cage. The mother didn't seem to have prepared a nest and they were in two groups with a couple scattered around. She also wasn't staying close to them. Unfortunately I was late for work and left in a hurry. By the time I came back wanting to move them to another cage they were all dead, half buried under the substrate, without any sign of injuries. I'm guessing either they weren't fed by the mother or were trampled.

I'm not sure what I've done wrong, I thought litters could coexist with the colony and females would help each other.

Also the other 2 females aren't showing any pregnancy sign.

Cull the mother. She isn't cut out for mothering. You might be better off going to the pet store and buying a nursing mother with her pups, and as they wean, breed the mom and the girls with the adult male (or get another male altogether). Cull the juvenile males (or use them for food first)... and between the mother and her daughters figure out which ones give the best/biggest litters and take care of them best. Keep those females, and use their pups for snake food... every once in a while, keep a female or two and see how they do with litters before culling the older generations...