Litter deaths, bad mothers, and mother weight questions

Ahh, yay. 21 and 22 days after getting my rats, I get babies! Here's my little log to sum up my Q's for the most part.

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Oct 7th, 2010
Hooded Female had seven healthy babies. Unable to tell sex. Took one that looked like a female to feed to Apotos @ 1:30am next day; fed Daemon what appeared to be a male about 15 minutes later.

Oct 8th, 2010
Berkshire female started giving birth at about 8pm. Finished around 10pm. Two still born babies, slightly small babies.

Oct 9th, 2010
Found 5 dead babies from Berkshire litter. Don't know if it's related to her first litter or the fact that she doesn't seem to want to take care of them so it's just the other girl doing any work. The hooded girl's litter is strong and healthy and getting some more color. They seem a lot livelier than the other bigger litter. Not sure if it's age or what...
Later
Three babies from hooded girl's litter appear male, two female. Berkshire's litter appears to have four males and one female.
Hooded litter is feeling a little fuzzy, but doesn't show any obvious fur. Moving very well. Visible whiskers and claws can be felt. All appear to have hooded coat. Babies don't make much noise, but react to being picked up.
Berkshire litter still seems a little weak, feels leathery, and has shorter whiskers. Babies are somewhat noisy and active when picked up.

Oct 11th, 2010
Noticed the hooded girl's litter is getting bigger still. Whiskers are longer, color is darker, and very short fuzz is beginning to grow. Berkshire's litter is getting more color, but doesn't appear to be developing fur yet. Still quite small compared to other litter, but growing.

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What's going on with the Berkshire girl who had 12 babies is she doesn't do ANYTHING concerning the babies. She isn't nursing them, she isn't sitting on them (hell, neither is the male), she wants nothing to do with them. I KNOW she's lactating because two babies were able to latch on and get some milk the day she had them and before she recovered. Any ideas?

The hooded female is being a very good mother. She crouched over them so that can nurse and she doesn't crush them, she bothers me when I take a baby out for whatever reason and gently bites it and returns it to the nest when I return it to her (but she doesn't bite me even when I reach right under her :) ), and she returns one to the nest if it's crawled off somewhere. However, I noticed the past two days she's losing some weight. She was the same size as the other female and looked similar to the male, but when she's crouched over the litter, I can notice her sides sucking in a bit, so her spine is a bit prominent. Any ideas? The other girl had 12 babies and looks much better... but she isn't nursing. Hm. Any foods that I can offer to try fattening her back up?

And then I'm curious if anyone has some input on the pups that died. Two were stillborn, which doesn't concern me because it was such a large first litter, but the five that died over night! I don't know, could it be that they suffocated under 10 other babies (since the hooded girl piled 'em all in the same nest) or something of the like?

Since she's already shown she's not a good momma rat as far as caring for her babies, it's possible she laid on them and suffocated them.
If she goes on to breed again and is a bad mom again I'd replace her.

I've found one food that works AWESOME to fatten up a momma rat, yogurt

I'm not sure if I'd want to deal with messy yogurt. O.o

We are speaking of saving a female that is emaciated, you do what it takes when they get so scrawny that they are at risk of dying.

My rats love yogurt, I give it to them in lil ceramic ramekins and they slurp it up and I promise you, any mess made is licked clean rather quickly :P

:rofl:

Any suggestion on brand and flavor? I got her some wax worms about a week ago and those seem to be doing her a lot of good (or she's looking that way because she's likely got another litter coming), including a variety of Can O' bugs. They love dem grasshoppers and mealies! This girl's also happy to scarf anything up that I give her by hand, unlike the male. :rolleyes: Unless it's something he likes, he'll drop it.

ASFs are funny to watch when you get them the head end of anything live. XD

lol @ bugs, sounds nutritious :)

I feed any flavor yogurt including plain, they like it all.

They love the bugs. :rolleyes: The babies don't seem to realize one end bites, though.

I'll pick up some yogurt tomorrow after I run my mom to the doctor and pick out whatever has the least crap in it. xD

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Originally Posted by Shenzi Sixaxis

:rofl:

Any suggestion on brand and flavor? I got her some wax worms about a week ago and those seem to be doing her a lot of good (or she's looking that way because she's likely got another litter coming), including a variety of Can O' bugs. They love dem grasshoppers and mealies! This girl's also happy to scarf anything up that I give her by hand, unlike the male. :rolleyes: Unless it's something he likes, he'll drop it.

ASFs are funny to watch when you get them the head end of anything live. XD

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Are you giving the mamas a little break? just from this post sounds like your chain breeding which could be a reason your mamas aren't doing that good.

That was the first breeding, so I somehow doubt chain breeding would have anything to do with that already.

On the other hand, yogurt and canned insects make a good treat that helps the mothers and babies drastically with their weight and muscle tones. The adult buck actually started getting fat from munching on it as well. :rolleyes:

The female who lost a bunch of weight just had a litter of 8 babies a few days ago and looks much better than she did after the first one. The babies also look better; the black hood they all have (hoodedXhooded, go figure xD) was DARK, and is even darker now.

The girl who had 13 babies and was loose in the room for 2 weeks with little food and water is definitely skinny, but not skin and bones to say. :/ She's had plenty of food and the yogurt concoction, but she's not looking any better than when I caught her. She also lost about 2 and a half inches off her tail, but she's happy to escape if I give her the chance, and she's wary so I can't handle or even her too much without risking a bite, which is pretty damn destructive to my already delicate hands (RA and Lupus symptoms without having either condition, plus symptoms that don't match either, go figure). I'd like to keep her around to breed her just once more (or longer if she starts being a decent mother) and try to keep some female babies alive (hopefully 2 berkshires) since all but five of her litter died, all males. Ahh, rats. Awesome yet annoying.