2nd Litter!

[Jay_Bunny]

Doe, our beige female, dropped her babies tonight. Actually we caught her in the act of birth. 9 babies were out, a few with their cords still attached. Since she was in the same cage as Kermit, her mate, I didn't want her getting pregnant again so soon, so we moved her and the 9 babies into a nursing tub. So far we have 9 but I'm hoping she's not done yet. Will me moving her cause her too much stress? Will she eat the babies?

And also, what might the babies look like? The mother looks like this...

http://spoiledratten.com/_uimages/be...ge08222005.jpg

Please note that this is not my rat and I am only using this image because my camera doesn't have batteries and I want to show what Doe looks like.

The male looks like this...

http://www.miceandrats.com/images/rat_hoo.jpg

Please note this is not my rat and I am only using this image to show what Kermit looks like...or what he sorta looks like.

So what should the babies look like? Beige like momma, black hoodeds like dad? A mixture? Beige hoodeds? I know nothing about rat genetics.

[littleindiangirl]

You'll probably get blacks, UNLESS the male is het for the red eyed dilute. The RED makes beige rats when homozygous and not agouti.

As for markings, I would expect some hoodeds and berks and maybe some selfs if the mom truly is a self.

[frankykeno]

She'll likely be fine. In the future though move dad out and then if you need to you can move mom and litter after a day or so.

I'm guessing you'll get a lot of berkies but who knows what genetics they both carry recessively. I had one black hooded male rat that threw a TON of albino's no matter what female you put him with.

You should see their coat pattern developing within days of birth.

[Jay_Bunny]

I love seeing the coat patterns develop. Our albino female's litter is 6 days old and their markings are clearly defined now. All hoodeds. Cute little fat things they are. I can't wait to get different kinds of rats and add them to the colony.

[MarkS]

As far as what you'll get, it's pretty much anybodies guess, I don't think there is a pet store rat around that isn't het for a whole bunch of traits. I started out with 2.8 rats. 9 were black hooded and 1 was solid black. Out of those I now have blacks, silvers, blues, albinos, beige, sewer rats (agouti) and they all come in hooded, self, berkshire and dumbo eared varieties. I also used to get rexes though I haven't seen any for a while. I've never consciously controlled the breeding of my rats for certain traits and I try not to be persuaded by looks since my main goal is high production for feeders, but I still tend to hold back the prettier ones or the odd balls as future breeders. I just can't help myself sometimes.

Mark