Once you have a litter do you seperate the new mother and pups?

I've decided to give rat breeding a shot so I built a rack and got some adults. I have 3 groups of 3, 1m 2f each. I thought they could be left together to raise the pups but I got my first litter and a day later they were completely gone so someone ate them. The mother made a nice big nest out of the substrate and had them all together nursing when I saw them. Then the next morning they were all just gone. I asked my breeder and he said I might want to try separating the new mother and pups next time. I'm wondering if removing the male is also an option. I really didn't plan on having to relocate females or males every time I have babies, I really just don't have enough room which is why removing the male may be a better idea and then let the two females raise their litters until I'm ready to breed them again, it would at least save some space. I only have one extra tub in the rack for grow outs and then two separate containers I could use for either a male or mother and pups. I'd just like to get a plan together before I get my next litter, I'd be pretty upset if I lost another one.

I've been breeding rats for about a year now, at first I was separating the females when they had babies, but now I actually keep the male and female and babies all in the same tub, I'm using an ARS rat breeding rack. I've never once had a problem with rats eating their babies, although I've had mice do it on occasion, and only when they have their first litter and don't realize what the babies are. The problem with separating the males is that you have to wait for the babies to be weaned, then put the male and female together again at which point there is varying degrees of fighting, then you have to wait another month for the female to get pregnant and have babies. If you keep the male and female together the females will have more babies as soon as the first batch is weaned, it doubles your production. You can actually have half as many male / female tubs than when you separate the females.

I also keep my mice in breeding colonies of one male to 3-5 females. I had a few problems with cannibalism at first in one tank but it doesn't last long once the moms raise up a batch or two of babies. When my mice and rats are at weanling stage I separate them into male / female tubs to keep them from getting pregnant and fighting. And I thin out the numbers as they get older so I don't overcrowded the tubs. Right now I'm experiencing some tail chewing in some of my rat tubs, I've never seen that before, maybe just too many rats per tub. I fed off the few babies with chewed tails first and started putting more food blocks right in the tubs instead of just overhead in the feeders, I think that will help.

I have been breeding rats for a decade I produce a few thousands each year and I have experimented various method, harem, rotating males, communal birthing, individual birthing etc

What tend to work best is to rotate males or females and remove the females when pregnant to let them birth in an individual tub, than once the babies are about 5 to 7 days move the females in communal nursing tubs.

This allows maximum production and minimum loss, while females are great mothers they are sometime to great and will fight over babies and when they are under 5 to 7 days their skin is very fragile, breaks easily and it lead to death.

There are a few possible scenario with your situation, male killing the pup, bad female killing her pups, lactation problem (pup died or were culled and than rats did what they do clean up) etc.

The mother had previous litters successfully and she seemed to be doing well as far as having a nice nest put together and nursing so my first instinct was the male killed them. Are rats one of those animals that the males wont tolerate other males offspring? Because this female was already pregnant when I got her and the father was not my male. That was the only reason I could think of why they would be killed off. The breeder I got them from thinks it was the mother but I'm not sure why. He said his breeders killed off their first couple litters as well when he got started so he separated the mother once pregnant and let her raise them by herself for the first litter and then let them all stay together after that and hasn't had a problem since. I'd just hate to lose another litter so maybe I'll try that with the next litter. I'm just going to run out of room real fast if I need to separate each female.

Some males will kill babies. I've had to cull males in the past. Unfortunately you may have to either separate rats and deal with putting them back together, or risk another litter to see if he's okay with the next litter.

Some times a diet change can help as well.

I've only been breedng rats the past 6 months, but I've always separated the females just before they give birth. I did some research and heard about males eating babies and females fighting over litters, so I didn't want to take any chances. So far the only cannibalism I've seen is if the babies are stillborn.

Well I have two more females that are pregers so I put them each in their own tubs until they have the pups weened. Now the problem is I have 3 of my tubs being wasted with a rat each and I'm down to one spare tub. I don't see this working long term but for now I just need enough feeders to keep up with 6 little mouths. Once I have a grow out tub going, I'll only be able to separate 2 females at a time but I have 6 female breeders so I'll need to figure something else out at that point. I'll update on how the new litters are doing. Thanks for the help so far.

I just tried keeping one male and two females together permanently, both moms just had babies, no problems at all.

I separate mine. I have 4 females and one male. When a female is clearly pregnant or births a litter (if i didnt notice pregnancy) i separate her and leave her separated till the litter is weaned. Then back in with the group she goes and the pups get separated by sex. I do this with a total of 6 tubs. I always have different sizes available and have yet to run out of space. Ive actually had to keep the male separated longer lately as i only have 4 BPs and am producing more rats than i really need. Ive yet to have any little killed off.

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If you want maximum production you want to separate the females as they are pregnant and avoid back to back breeding with rats. (Females can become pregnant again hours after birthing)

Being pregnant while nursing takes it's toll fast not only on the mother but the next litter to come, the litters will be smaller so will the babies.

The other thing that helps in reducing the loss is individual birthing and communal nursing when the pups are 5 days or older.

You need more tubs.

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