Betsy Buttpatch Did It Again!

Not a problem Shannon. I obviously love breeding our rats and will gab on about them for hours at a time LOL.

We don't normally let the females share enclosures when they give birth, though we've had to occasionally just due to space issues. What we usually do is pull a female from the breeder tub once she appears pregnant (they get a definite pear shape usually). That female goes into her own 10 gallon tank and just rests in peace and quiet, with lots of good food and water until she gives birth a week or so later. She'll remain in there until her litter is weaned or fed off (we go through a lot of pinks, fuzzies and pups right now). If it's a really big litter we do keep a number of larger tubs to move mom and babies up to once the pups have their eyes open and are moving around a lot. I have stick on label on each enclosure listing the rats name and the date she gave birth so I can keep track of which litter is what age.

Jet and Betsy are in seperate tubs. I just simply reached in, nudged Betsy aside and removed 5 pinks. Then popped them under Jet so they could latch on with her litter. Betsy and Jet are not terribly nippy when nursing so this was safe enough to do. I've other females I wouldn't dare do this with LOL and with those sorts I use either something to block them from me for a sec or remove the mother for a moment to a container while I deal with the litter. Some females, even nice tempered ones, get VERY nippy when they have babies and rat bites are VERY nasty things.

Most every female rat I've ever known will immediately care for fosters. I do like to keep my fosters in with a litter of similar size (another reason we buddy breed so often....it gives me huge flexibility to resort litters when needed).

The reason we don't allow much communal mothering is every time I've tried it, it seemed one female ended up stuck with a huge nest of both litters while her "sister" rat lazed about not taking her turn much. Also if there's any genetic issues I can't figure out whose babies are whose or even just not the resulting good weanlings I want. I like to track carefully who produces for me and who doesn't. I may love the rats, but I'm not supporting a lot of iffy breeders that aren't carrying their weight in the colony.