Weird mother rat

3 weeks ago I had one female give a litter (about 5) and a week later another female had a litter. A few days after the second one gave birth I noticed the other females babies were missing and the nest she made was gone. Turns out she put all of her babbies in the other females nest and the other female is now nursing all the babies:confused:. Is this something that happens alot???

I've only tried communal mothering a couple of times in the past when space was limited and I saw this once. That female rat ended up culled as she proved to be pretty much totally uninterested in mothering her litter. When another female with milk was present she left them to take total care of both litters, when she was housed alone with her litter, she showed absolute minimal interest in them and produced crappy feeders (likely due to not being cared for and feeding them properly).

We are just going to try a communal female breeding thing so I'm really interested in this type of question too.

A little update on this, they are now "sharing" nursing duties, first week one mom didnt want anything to do with the babies. Now one day it will be one female and another day it will be the other one. The babies seem to be growing quite nicely but this is certainly the first time ive seen rats "share" nursing duties for a litter.:)

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Originally Posted by worldcupkeeper

A little update on this, they are now "sharing" nursing duties, first week one mom didnt want anything to do with the babies. Now one day it will be one female and another day it will be the other one. The babies seem to be growing quite nicely but this is certainly the first time ive seen rats "share" nursing duties for a litter.:)

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I keep my females in pairs and rotate the boys in for visits. I have had the girls split them out into piles and move from one to the other. I have also had one hog all the babies, which seems like a lot of work. When that happens I split them out 50/50. So far so good.