hairless females bad mommys?

Are all hairless females bad mother's? I've bred feeder rats for a fairly long time and every now and again you get a female that don't do so well at being a mom. No bog deal you feed ot off and replace her with one from the grow out tub. However I have started trying to breed some pet quality rats and am not having any luck with my females. I have 4 hairless females and a double rex (hairless gene carrier) male and I tried running 2 girls per tub and they all ate there offspring. So I seperated them and tried again. Each female in its own tub and a week with the male. So far 3 of them have had a second litter and all 3 of them have eaten there offspring and the other one is due next week. So anyone else seen this with hairless?

Hairless are known to be poor breeders because they have issues lactating and producing milk.

Perhaps they ate their babies because the pups all starved? I'm not certain. I've never heard of eating babies to be a hairless thing, just a individual rat thing.

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I agree with satomi if rats don't think the pups will live they eat them. try splitting them up with other normal rats. then the normal moms in the tub will help pick up their slack in milk production.

I have a hairless girl :) she's a great mom her first litter with me was 13 and she was better than one if the other new moms I had going then. I'm in process of breeding her again to one of her sons to try and get a hairless male so I can branch off an try an get some constant hairless rats that aren't inbreed too much. First gen will be.

it depends on the type of hairless you have full nude they have no hair at all, they have the most problems with producing milk skin infections and kidney failure. then there are the patch work hairless they have curley whiskers like they have been singed and little patches of hair that grow in and fall out from time to time. the patch work make good breeders most of the time have only had 1 out of 10 not be able to produce milk.

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Originally Posted by GWITTY

it depends on the type of hairless you have full nude they have no hair at all, they have the most problems with producing milk skin infections and kidney failure. then there are the patch work hairless they have curley whiskers like they have been singed and little patches of hair that grow in and fall out from time to time. the patch work make good breeders most of the time have only had 1 out of 10 not be able to produce milk.

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To my knowledge, he's talking about recessive hairless.
The other hairless(mock hairless) you are referring to is Double Rex (homozygous rex). Double Rex have no issues producing milk or breeding. It's a recessive hairless issue.

I only run my hairless females with furred hairless carriers. So hairless with het hairless females in a bin with a hairless male. That way the het hairless can assist in raising the babies. So far it works "okay" but they don't produce heavily, not like a regular bin of rats.

I have not seen any abnormal baby eating, and I do not ever see skin infections on my hairless.

I have had great luck so far with mine, the 20 I have are doing great and have big litters.