=( My pregnant rat passed away...

My breeder rat Krystal passed away yesterday...She's very pregnant with a huge huge belly. She had her first litter about a month ago. I believe she had complications when trying to give birth yesterday. I didn't want to do an autopsy on her since I love her dearly and it's just plain gross to cut her open or feed her to my snake.

RIP Krystal....A picture of her and her first litter..
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net...82349086_n.jpg

After mourning for the entire day, I decided to go out and buy another female rat. Her name is K 2, code name for Krystal #2. lol. She's soo cute with a tint of brown. Along with 2 of my hold back breeder females (Kystal #1 babies)

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-l...2/IMG_0284.JPG
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-U...0/IMG_0287.JPG
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-c...0/IMG_0305.JPG


I have a few questions so I can do it right....

1.) Could I leave the male rat in the same cage as the pregnant female or will he try to breed with her even when she's already pregnant?

2.) Can I put her back with the male after her litter is weaned or should she have a resting period?

3.) Do I need to feed the adults anything else, or lab blocks will be fine?

4.) My female was a Brown hooded rat and the male was a black hooded rat. The litter came out all black hooded. Anybody knows why? Are male genes stronger than the female?

Sorry to hear about that. Breeding animals results in this type of thing once in awhile. I've lost a few breeders too.

1. You can. He might try to breed with her but usually she fends him off. I did have one female bite the heck out of one of my breeder males for pestering her. I usually pull my females a few days before they birth.

2. That is up to you. I give them a rest sometimes if I have tub space or they have had several litters in fairly rapid succession. I don't always give a resting period. The younger the female the better chance you have to produce repeated back to back litters.

3. All my adults (breeders) get scraps, stale bread, stale crackers, cheerios, and even meats. I'm a pretty firm believer that healthy rats produce healthy food. This isn't necessary if you're feeding a high quality lab block but the extra fat and calories can never hurt. I almost always make sure pregnant or nursing rats get the most treats.

4. Some traits are dominant or recessive just like snakes. It has nothing to do with the sex of the animal as far as I'm aware. The brown might be recessive so you won't see it until you produce and hold back a male that carries the gene.

Regards,

B

I'm sure black is dominant over agouti, or you had bad luck.

Black is a recessive color trait in rats, agouti is a dominate trait.
It sounds like the "brown" rat is maybe a faded black rat, some of my black rats turn brownish as adults.
Black X Black makes 100% black every time unless other recessive traits pop up like Siamese or Blue.