Big Litter

Dont have tooo much fun breeding rats ;)

Yea I need to do one of those. Haha. A little over 3 years ago, I had only a leopard gecko. Now I have 8 ball pythons, 2 corn snakes, a boa, and I'm holding onto 2 rescues for my friend. I also have 11ish rats and a ton of mice. Wouldn't have these if I had not found this forum. Hahaha. :D

do you have this female separated?

If so, I would be very curious to see if all 18 survive.

I mean, nature doesn't supply them with 18 nipples or most likely enough milk for 18 offspring....

So if they all survive that would be pretty neat to know.

I didn't separate her from the male until about a day after she gave birth, so she might be pregnant again. I meant to pull him but I have had a busy busy week. I'm about to go up and see how she is doing and count the babies again.

I also just had another female drop a litter so I'm going to be counting those as well. I'll try to get pictures!

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Originally Posted by suzuki4life

do you have this female separated?

If so, I would be very curious to see if all 18 survive.

I mean, nature doesn't supply them with 18 nipples or most likely enough milk for 18 offspring....

So if they all survive that would be pretty neat to know.

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I've got a girl over here that consistantly throws litters in the upper teens, and they generally all survive. They do end up being quite a bit smaller than rats from other litters that are the same age if I don't throw another mother in there to help out.

She has 17 right now. This could have been a miscount (thought there was 18 when there was really 17) or she could have killed one. Either way the babies look great.

My sister has Yoshi's sister, a blue berkshire named Blue. She just had her first litter yesterday and had 16. Both girls are having big litters and I'm liking this. Hopefully they keep it up. :)

I have litters up to 14 make it through just fine all the time. Some of the babies are smaller, but once they get to be a few weeks old they start munching on food and they all catch up.

Her litter is down to 14 now. They are almost a week old now. They are getting their color in now. I've got several berks, some dark hooded (could be agouti or black), and some light hooded. All will be het for blue and dumbo, though the father's mother carries the dumbo gene, so I could get lucky and get some dumbos out of this litter. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tomfromtheshade

I have litters up to 14 make it through just fine all the time. Some of the babies are smaller, but once they get to be a few weeks old they start munching on food and they all catch up.

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separated with only one mother nursing?

I have litter lumps in my tubs with over forty babies ( I run 1.8 in my tubs) and I personally am a big advocate for communal nursing. I don't see the die offs when I pluck a few from a nest for an order and have experienced no issues with mothers about killing future litters as long as I leave about half of the litter intact. I am considering more about nursing tubs as an experiment, but still my mind set is that a nursing tub for 6 rats will take up half the space I can house 72 breeders in.

With sub par food ( I am currently using Zeigler over Mazuri, big mistake) My weaned size takes 3 weeks (which is 4 days over previous times.)


I will be changing back to Mazuri and continuing my previous breeding measures.