housing 2 prego's together

[Kagez28]

ok i have been trying to breed there 2 girls for a while. i put them both in with the male for about 2.5 weeks until they were FAT. so i moved both of them into a separate tub. a few days later one popped out 11 pinks. the other one has been in there for a week more and still no babies from her. this is the second time i thought this girl was pregnant, and i assume they mated around the same time, so shouldn't they have given birth at the same time? should i separate them and see if she'll pop by herself? or could it be she is just infertile?


thanks for the help in advance

[Stewart_Reptiles]

Sometimes my females give birth the same day sometimes 5 to 7 days apart it depends.

Does the other female still appear pregnant?

Are you sure only one gave birth or could it be both did but that they just had a small number of babies per litter?

I keep my females together when they give birth they build a common nest and feed the babies in the same time or taking turns.

Just make sure one female does not try to move or steal the babies that they don't fight over them, if they don't than they will be ok.

[Ginevive]

You can.. but sometimes, one female will "steal" all of the babies. I know that sometimes they will trade-off, but I had one incidence when I used to combine nursing females, where one mom overtook them all. I ended up just pulling the second mom, recouping her for awhile and re-breeding her. I have since housed my moms and their litters seperately.. easier to keep track of who's-whose babies in case a defect would arise, I would know who spawned it.

[frankykeno]

I recently tried the birthing together thing and wasn't thrilled with the results so I've gone back to the one mom per 10 gallon way I've always done it. What I am doing is letting them stay in that 10 gallon until the litter is a good couple of weeks old. Making sure I can see they are up and around and healthy and so forth and momma rat's in control of the horde. Then I'll sometimes put two momma's that get along in a huge tub with both their litters of similar ages. That seems to give the little rats some extra playmates and the mom's share the duties of managing them. If I need to remember a specific offspring to hold back or so forth I mark there tail with a bright red marker if I can't visually remember who is who. I exclude from this shared parenting any female rats who have litters I'm tracking specifically for any potential of genetic issues or concern about the mother's ability to care for her litter.