What the.......

Thanks alot Jeremy.

hey hun! I breed my own rats and mice as well and I find first time mommies do really well with an experienced mom to help them out..... I have multiple tubs set up like this:

Tub 1 and 2 ~ breeder males one in each
tub 3 and 4 ~ Females 4 each based off of how well they get along
tub 5 ~ Future breeders ( super sweet girls that share the same qualities of their moms
Tub 6 ~ Grow out babies that are 4.5 - 5 weeks old are put here for a few weeks then future breeders removed and feeders divided by sex so no unwanted litters

I keep the males in their own tubs and introduce a female to their tub for about a week each since I can't always be there to see if they have done the deed or not....this gives me a chance to see if there are any signs of pregnancy before trying again. Also even females who haven't had a litter have taken on helping the new mommies and experienced mommies with feeding and caring for the young....so far I haven't had any bad luck aside from a female I picked up having been already expecting and being too old leading to her not making it through birth :( In the end nothing is wasted though I always have something willing to eat.


my mice well there are two tubs
tub 1 ~ females with or with out babies and one male to play as dad...I do not introduce a new male when any females have babies with another male cause he will kill them
Tub 2 ~ feeders basically excess males since my litter contain mostly males

Hope this helps a little

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JEWSKIN

hey hun! I breed my own rats and mice as well and I find first time mommies do really well with an experienced mom to help them out..... I have multiple tubs set up like this:

Tub 1 and 2 ~ breeder males one in each
tub 3 and 4 ~ Females 4 each based off of how well they get along
tub 5 ~ Future breeders ( super sweet girls that share the same qualities of their moms
Tub 6 ~ Grow out babies that are 4.5 - 5 weeks old are put here for a few weeks then future breeders removed and feeders divided by sex so no unwanted litters

I keep the males in their own tubs and introduce a female to their tub for about a week each since I can't always be there to see if they have done the deed or not....this gives me a chance to see if there are any signs of pregnancy before trying again. Also even females who haven't had a litter have taken on helping the new mommies and experienced mommies with feeding and caring for the young....so far I haven't had any bad luck aside from a female I picked up having been already expecting and being too old leading to her not making it through birth :( In the end nothing is wasted though I always have something willing to eat.


my mice well there are two tubs
tub 1 ~ females with or with out babies and one male to play as dad...I do not introduce a new male when any females have babies with another male cause he will kill them
Tub 2 ~ feeders basically excess males since my litter contain mostly males

Hope this helps a little

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That did not help a little....it helped ALOT. Thank you. I guess i can copy something similar to what you're doing except that i have 3 tubs but if i keep the male in one and two females in each of the other tubs i can put each female with the male for a week and then leave the females alone and hope for the best.

I think you guys misunderstood what I was saying. You can keep your 1.3 group in the same bin , just remove the prego females before they give birth and set them up on their own.

I keep my groups at 1.5 , when there is a prego female she gets removed and a new girl gets rotated in. The girls in the top row have been in with the males the longs and most of the pregos should come from the top row.

http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/c...G/IMG_1745.jpg

It's fine to keep mixing different females in with other females and a male to breed.

Once they are pregnant the female gets removed and set up on her own here...

http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/c...G/IMG_1744.jpg

The female stays here by herself until the babies are ready to come out. Once ready the babies go here......

http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/c...G/IMG_1746.jpg

The mom then goes back into the breeding rack at the bottem and gets rotated through multiple males until they are ready to go again. I don't keep the same 1.5 together all the time. The females keep rotating up the racks as other females get removed.

Hope this helps.

my females are always kept together with or without babies

Trevor, that's an awsome setup you got there. thank you all for your advice, i was typing how i'm going to seperate the females when my wife yells that they are stealing each others babies back and forth and started fighting. i went ahead and separated them but i left all the babies to the good mama and she's taking care of them now. gotta go to sleep.

Communal nursing is always a little more problematic during the first 10 days, the babies are very fragile, the females often fight over them which can lead to severe injuries and death is it the case here? I would doubt it usually you will lose a few babies but not the majority, why is why I chose to keep female alone with their litter for at least the first 7 to 10 days, than I put the female together to raise their litters by than the babies are stronger already.

In your case there are various possibilities.

Since they were alive when they were born you can dismiss that possibility.

Babies might have die later on it is very possible, the mother could have failed to nurse them (new or bad mom) or no be able to nurse them (not producing enough milk).

The female might have killed the babies, that happens too it can be due to stress, presence of another female, lack of food, lack of water etc

You can give her another chance if this time I would recommend to keep her by herself to see how it goes with a litter and if something like that happens again I would retire her.

If you are breeding, feed, water and clean their bins but let them alone. Nature will take its place they will they settle out over time.

It sounds to me you have pets that you plan to allow to breed. This will be stressful and expensive. If that is your plan, then you basically need to house them all separately. I suggest cute little wooden name plaques, dresses, tuxes and custom cages that look similar to doll houses. Once every 2 months you can have "date night" where Ken and Barbie rat can hop in their rat Ferrari and go dancing.


I will tell you this secret. Rats are some of the best survivors known in the animal kingdom. Their actions are how nature teaches them to act. If one adult becomes a real problem, deal with the adult. The loss of one litter is not a problem in the wild. Most species lose most of their offspring in the wild or their populations tend to explode.

They are stealing each other's babies and fighting because mostly likely....YOU ARE BOTHERING NEW MOTHERS!!!!! IF you know what they are doing...YOU ARE BOTHERING THEM!!!!!


LET THEM ALONE.....

Thanks Deb and Gary. I now it was not a lack of food or water so stress and maybe another female are the factors here, my inexpirience talking. Now as for considering them "pets" i'm not sure if i can really say that since the only time that i have any contact with them is when i clean the tubs, other than that i do look into their tubs more often than i problably should especially when they were pregnant. but the only reason i have rats is for food. so now my question is how often do you check yours when they are prego? how do you can keep track of how old are the babies so you can start feeding them off? other than feeding, watering and cleaning their tubs, do you just let them be? or maybe i should get them their own barbie doll house...LOL

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Originally Posted by TnT Reptiles

Sometimes they are fine and sometimes not. Just depends on the 2 girls. If you have room to keep them separate I would suggest it. I think you will find you'll have better luck. :D

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Yep yep! I keep my moms in separate tubs, I'd rather not wait and find out if they get along.