surrogate mothering question

Well my hairless was bred with a hooded and everyone of her babies has the black hooded markings so I don't think I have any hairless. The funny part of it is I only had the hairless mom with the hooded for a few hrs one day but with a lab rat for 2 months but that one day and the hooded is the father! Kinda think thats mind blowing that she was with the lab rat for 2 months and never got prego was with the hooded for a few hrs one day and then put back with the lab rat and all the babies are hoodeds! LOL I guess it only takes once.

And she had a litter of 10 for her first litter which is this litter. All her babies seem to be smaller than the other babies of a different mother that had their litter the same day so IDK if I should foster them out or see if she is gonna continue to nurse them?

I had a clutch that was bigger then the hairlesses. If it is her 1st you can just see how she is by counting the babies and checking them every day and night. We didn't notice til a few days later that with her 1st clutch that she was eating them or not caring for some. Her second clutch I switched the babies gave her some normal babies from the ones that give use feeders for our snakes. Markiej breeds our snakes. So I breed enough to switch them.

If you take the hairless and breed it to the normal haired rat, you then get haired babies with the hairless gene. What you can do is take one of those babies and breed it back to the hairless this gives a chance of 50% hairless. Thats how we got our 3rd clutch. We took the baby when she was ready and breed it back to the dad and got a cltuch of 10 4 which were hairless. They all have hoods but are hairless. The hairless are born with thin light fir.

Monique

Well all mine are going to be for feeders well besides the breeders of course. I have a mom delivering as we speak. She is a creme colored hooded with the stripe down her back. It is so cool to watch the deliveries!! LOL I look in on all my rats too many times a day to count so I have been checking the hairless babies alot. She seems to be still nursing them milk as they are growing pretty good I thought they were smaller then they actually are. I compared them to a haired mom that delivered the same day so she seems to be doing good. As for the hairless, well I just tried to breed them as an experiment to see if they are infact bad mothers but mine seems to be ok so far but I have heard that hairless aren't good for feeders so I won't be making any of them.

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Originally Posted by mermaid1978

I had a clutch that was bigger then the hairlesses. If it is her 1st you can just see how she is by counting the babies and checking them every day and night. We didn't notice til a few days later that with her 1st clutch that she was eating them or not caring for some. Her second clutch I switched the babies gave her some normal babies from the ones that give use feeders for our snakes. Markiej breeds our snakes. So I breed enough to switch them.

If you take the hairless and breed it to the normal haired rat, you then get haired babies with the hairless gene. What you can do is take one of those babies and breed it back to the hairless this gives a chance of 50% hairless. Thats how we got our 3rd clutch. We took the baby when she was ready and breed it back to the dad and got a cltuch of 10 4 which were hairless. They all have hoods but are hairless. The hairless are born with thin light fir.

Monique

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Mammals have litters, reptiles/birds have clutches.... :weirdface

Sorry to hear about the dead one, it could have been a still born or the mom could have kinda ignored it. My rat who just had a litter was giving birth to each baby in really close succession so that she couldn't finish cleaning one before another came, causing her to give a few licks to the newest one and ignore it.

I had to take one out and stimulate it (taking a wet q-tip and rubbing its body, imitating licking) for a few minutes to get it breathing well, and I had to bring the mom's attention to one she had just birthed who was still mostly in the birth sac. I take out the babies once a day and potty them, since she doesn't always get to every one.

Rat genetics are crazy! My albino girls last litter consisted of 1 hood, 2 black berkshires (like their daddy), 7 albinos and one boy who has developed himalayan/siamese point markings who had been just a normal albino until a few weeks after birth. Both of these rats are from petco so I didn't expect anything other than hoods, blacks, and albinos!

I usually have my females alone in a tub when they give birth/raise pups, but when I have a first time mom I often pair her up with an experienced mom. The last time I did that with a first time mom the experienced mom I put her with pretty much took all the babies for herself along with her own. After a few days I caught her and the new mom making a nest together and from then on they both cared for the pups, but the experienced mom took on about 80% of the work.

I might just throw that hairless rat in with the other mom that just have pups and let the experienced mom help her out. Unless you've never housed those females together....then that could turn out bad.

***edit: sorry I didn't realize this was an older thread***

Update: Both of my hairless rats had litters and both were and are a very good mothers! Had one creme colored hooded that her first litter I had to surrogate out but she is on her second litter now and being a good mom so I think I got a pretty good breading stock going now and have kept a few hold back males and females to grow up as breeders!!