Breeding Behavior Question

Last season, breeding Akina was pretty easy. She displayed all the right things and went off feed. This season, she's being a little more difficult. She's still pounding medium rats. She's been introduced to the male several times. They've been leaving trails, crumpling the paper and I saw what was close to a lock. She's staying on the warm side constantly. Any thoughts? Is it normal for a female to eat while breeding?

Lots of time on the warm side would indicate to me that she's not ready.

What i do since i do not cycle temps at all, is i put cold water in the females water bowls at night daily. This will give them a cool temp to wrap around. And can help jump start them into the mood of breeding.

She's displaying all the other signs and I have seen two occasions of an almost lock. He wasn't quite in the right position. Now, I has been getting pretty cold in my house. I actually might have to go get a heater for the animal room because temps are dropping so much at night. She spent a lot of time on the warm side last season too.

Pounding food is a good thing.. It means she may be trying to put on mass weight in order to start breeding..I've seen slugish girls just start hammering food once they have been paired a few times..

She went right after her medium rat last night. :) The rats were around 200g. Sadis went from being 1250g to 1450g after her meal. I can't wait till Sadis hits 1500g. Only 250g to go! Shane is so slow to get up to weight. She ate a small/medium rat last night and I weighed her today to see how much she weighs with a meal in her and she's only 1100g. :( She's an '06. She's just a very picky eater.

Those meals are way too big. Feed smaller meals more often not large meals.

My females breeding right now get sm rats every 5 days max of 80grams each and the females are pushing 3000grams

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by flameethrower

Those meals are way too big. Feed smaller meals more often not large meals.

My females breeding right now get sm rats every 5 days max of 80grams each and the females are pushing 3000grams

---

How many at each sitting are you giving them?

I give one 80 gram rat every 5 days. They put on weight just fine for the season. No need to give them Huge meals as most of it will be wasted and pooped out.

You could barely see a "bulge" in them this morning and I watched them eat so I know they ate the rat. Sadis weighed 1250g yesterday before feeding and weighed 1450g this morning after feeding. So the rat was somewhere around 200g. You could barely tell she had eaten anything and the rat was not too large. Only my males and two of my females are getting small rats.