Breeding RaTs

I just got two rats today a male and a female. I wanted to breed them but they show no interest in eachother. Are they just not meant for eachother or what? :taz:

How old are they? They need to be AT LEAST 4 months of age to successfully birth and raise a litter. Any younger than that and you run into alot of problems.

Try searching the forums for information on rats breeding. There is a literal ton of good threads about age to breed, proper food/bedding/housing, picking healthy rats.

As of now, separate them to their own cages, provide proper food and fresh water in a water bottle and maybe get them each a same sex companion. Pet stores usually carry young babies that are just weaned(5-7 weeks old). This is definitely not old enough to safely have a litter and they should be properly raised up before you attempt to breed them again.

Look at my sticky on the Rat Food Mix in the Feeder section. You should find it helps alot!

I bought my rats at petco. They had a few different tanks of rats: Small, Medium, Large. That's a different way of saying the age right? Well I got the large ones because I figured that that would mean that they're ready to be breed.

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Originally Posted by jwk811

I bought my rats at petco. They had a few different tanks of rats: Small, Medium, Large. That's a different way of saying the age right? Well I got the large ones because I figured that that would mean that they're ready to be breed.

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If I understand right, rats can also be too OLD to breed. Females, at least. If they haven't been bred by a certain age, their pelvic bones fuse into place and will not be able to adjust for a pregnancy and delivery.

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Originally Posted by jwk811

I just got two rats today a male and a female. I wanted to breed them but they show no interest in eachother. Are they just not meant for eachother or what?

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The female will go into her estrus (sp?) cycle once every 4 days. During those 12 hours or so on that one day, she will be receptive to the male. BTW, if the female is too old or has not been bred before than she may not be fertile anymore. You should have purchased the medium sized ones and waited a month or so longer.

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Originally Posted by JLC

If I understand right, rats can also be too OLD to breed. Females, at least. If they haven't been bred by a certain age, their pelvic bones fuse into place and will not be able to adjust for a pregnancy and delivery.

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Beat me to it :P .

You should've went with a pair of small rats.They wont be able to breed right off the bat,but you'll at least know that they wont be to old.
Also,I breed all of my own feeders,Females dont normally run into as many problems as people say they do if they breed when to young.
I start putting females in with males at 2 months,and rarely if never do I lose young females to breeding complications..

Actually I think they're doing good now. They were chasing eachother around just a minute ago...

Well you just got them today and if they came from PetCo they were seperated by gender. In other words they are total strangers to each other...what did you expect? They might be "just" rodents but they are living creatures not machines so they are going to need to get to know each other somewhat, check each other out, establish dominance and the female has to go into her breeding cycle which doesn't happen every day or just becuase you tossed a male rat in with her. Give it a bit of time.

(I went ahead and moved this to the Feeder forum with all your other rat threads. ;) )