rat babys burried?

This happens. Eventually she'll notice and go grab him, or he'll squeak and get her attention. If she's off doing something else you can just toss him back in the nest. Rats don't generally wig out about human smell, but if you hand him back to her, and she's a biter, she might bite *him*. (i've had that happen before with a particularly defensive mommy rat)

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Originally Posted by takagari

yeah mine has aspen and clothe. she has used the clothe to wall them in and uses the bare plastic for the bottom.

Im worried though because she left a single baby about 7 inches from the nest on his own and she is feeding and cleaning the ones she has. but ignoring the one she left out

is this normal? I saw her drag the lil fellow out on a nipple so i know she didnt toss it out?

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Sometimes they've just forgotten one and will go retreive it, or it stayed attached to her teat and fell off out of the nest when she left to feed. Usually the mother rat will notice and go get the stray. If not you can usually nudge it back to her.

Sometimes though if you notice she's kicking out the same one over and over there is a good reason. She's instinctively culling her litter of a less than perfect offspring, a runt or one that just isn't right to her. When I see that I do let the mother rat make that call. I think her instincts are usually right and I'll remove that offspring.

Also don't be surprised if female rats with larger litters split the litter and make two nests. That's totally normal behaviour. When I first was breeding rats I'd stupidly "help" the mother by putting the litter all back together for her. I'm pretty sure most of my female rats were giving me the evil eye about that "help" LOL.