Reduced My Colony..

I just got rid of a bunch of my older breeder rats and now im down to two, a male and a female. It would be very convenient to house them together but the female would probably always be pregnant..is this ok? I mean, is it unhealthy for her to have babies that often?

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Originally Posted by zackw419

I just got rid of a bunch of my older breeder rats and now im down to two, a male and a female. It would be very convenient to house them together but the female would probably always be pregnant..is this ok? I mean, is it unhealthy for her to have babies that often?

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it is perfectly fine...I run rats 1:8 and they breed 15 cycles in perfect health.

people who argue this are worried about pets not production of feeders.

they kinda are my pets.. but im glad they will be fine.

What you can do is some things like I'm doing... with my mice I don't have a need for the male when the females are definitely pregnant. So I feed off the male to one of my snakes. Less mouths to feed and I can get a breedable male in a heartbeat. The females like it better too. They each had 11 babies this time around and none were eaten. Soon the babies will be weaned and I'll put the moms in a cage separate from the babies, and put in a male with them after a week or so. Wait until they are definitely pregnant, then feed off the male again.

If you don't want to feed off your male and you don't want to keep a second cage going, then you may as well keep them together. I just try to think of it as if I was the animal... would I want to be pregnant non-stop :rolleye2: Nope... so hopefully if there's a reincarnation stage of life, I will be treated as I've treated my animals. :)

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Originally Posted by suzuki4life

it is perfectly fine...I run rats 1:8 and they breed 15 cycles in perfect health.

people who argue this are worried about pets not production of feeders.

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1:8? I guess you started running those bigger tubs?

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Originally Posted by tomfromtheshade

1:8? I guess you started running those bigger tubs?

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yep I have 10 racks in place. Waiting on more tubs.