My female rat just gave birth to her second litter about a week and a half ago. Her first litter was only 6 and this one was 13 pups. She was housed with another female who should be about mid way into her pregnancy. Things seemed to be going great. I checked on them last night and everything seemed fine. I went back up this morning to find her dead. I don't know what caused it at all. There was no evidence of a fight on either female. Any way back to my point.... I left the pups with the other female(an experienced mother) who seems to be tending to them(keeping them together and clean) since finding the mother dead, but it doesn't look as though she is feeding them. Is it because she isn't producing or could it be something else? I've already hand raised a few pups that were purchased as snake food but were refused by the snakes and the mother I had at the time with great success. My concern is that they were a few days(maybe even a week) older than these babies. Should I give her a little more time with them before even attempting to hand raise them? I know it will be very hard to raise them being so young, but I can't just leave them to die either. I don't have any other females to try to foster them with. Nor do I know anyone else who might. Any advise is greatly appreciated!