Quick breeding question...

I know female rats go into heat immediately after having a litter. I remember reading something that they then don't go into heat again every 5 days like usual? At what point do they have a heat again after the post-birth heat? If you remove the babies can you encourage this sooner?

Thanks.

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Originally Posted by MrLang

I know female rats go into heat immediately after having a litter. I remember reading something that they then don't go into heat again every 5 days like usual? At what point do they have a heat again after the post-birth heat? If you remove the babies can you encourage this sooner?

Thanks.

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The females go immediately into heat a few hours after birth. But that's the only "window" for breeding because she won't go into heat again until the current litter is weaned. Otherwise, the females go into heat every 4-5 days if she is not pregnant or nursing.

So if you were to leave a male with the females 24/7, she can birth another litter once the next litter is weaning. So it's basically just back to back litters.

Yes. Removing babies can speed up the breeding process.

Basically I am gassing some babies at 40g. Even though this is only 3 weeks after birth, would she start going back into heat once she isn't nursing for a few days? Should I expect it to take more than 4 or 5 days to go into heat after removing the babies?

Thanks dude. I knew you had my answers :D

It'll depend on how quickly her milk supply dries up. If you are removing a few babies at a time, the process will probably speed itself up, once the last baby is removed, because the demand on her milk supply is tapering off. If you were to halt all nursing abruptly (as would happen if you removed the entire litter at one time), the hormones would also change fairly quickly, but it could also result in some discomfort for the mom as her body continues to produce milk until it realizes there is no longer a demand for that milk. The hormones produced during lactation is what delays ovulation. Same thing happens in other mammals, including humans.