How many mothers...

I have a wire "hutch" with 5 female rats in it including my breeder female, and she is due pretty soon now. Are the other females going to be a problem when she has her babies?

Not at all. Rats are very good at helping each other out. The only time I've had problems with rats was when I mixed two males that didn't know each other.

Mice on the other hand... They're a little pickier and need more time to sort out the pecking order.

What size hardware wire is on the bottom?
I would pull the prego and put her in a birthing tub so that the pinks are not born on, or fall through the wire.

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Originally Posted by rjk890

What size hardware wire is on the bottom?
I would pull the prego and put her in a birthing tub so that the pinks are not born on, or fall through the wire.

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The bottom and back side is wood treated with some kind of water proofing varnish, it was left over or extra from an enclosure we got that had housed a 16ft burm. This is basically what it looks like...

http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/4954/ratcage.jpg

Okay, they should be fine then.
I run my rats in 1.5 groups and don't pull prego's, and my production is great.

Well my pregnant female just bit the heck out of my finger, she has never bitten before, could this be because of the pregnancy?

Yes it can. I just started breeding rats and have this one that would sit on your lap but once she was pregnant for a little while and until the babies were weaned she would bite me every time I put my hand into the bin. Now she is resting and she will let me pick her up like before.

we had one that we got as a pet then got snakes. She nips when she's nursing she just had a litter and she's over 2 years old, I figured she was still nursing other female's babies and not having them herself but I guess she's having her own as well(she's a larger boned dumbo so it's hard to tell). my female are about 8:1 in one large cage.

Ok so she finally built her nest today and over the past two days her belly has literally tripled in size, she must have at least 15 babies in there. The thing is, the other 3 females stole her nest! :mad::mad: