What the.......

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Originally Posted by jben

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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I have a room of racks. I do a once a day sweep in which I fill buckets and food. Other than that, the only time I open the actual tub is my weekly harvest or weekly cleaning time. (or if I smell something is wrong)

I have huge requests for pinks and weans so I am considering moving my insects elsewhere and using the entire building for rodents only. UNLESS you need day old stuff...then watching your rats close will cause more harm than good.

If I needed really small pinks I would change diet rather than stressing them by watching them more often.

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Originally Posted by jben

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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I check on my rats daily (simply checking the water level and making sure there is no leak or flooding) just take 5 minutes a day.

Once a week I clean their enclosures, I have a very specific rotating schedule so I rotate the animals put new females in rotation and check the ones that were with males, if pregnant depending on how advanced they are they either go in a communal tub (with no male) or in an individual tub if they are ready to pop.

Rats are arranged by sized which let me know which ones are the older, I feed about everything from pup to small/medium (which is from 2 weeks old to 4 or 5 weeks old)

Once you do that a while you look at the rat and you know whether it is 2 weeks or 4 ;)

Beside that I do not interact with my rats, they are very well taken care of but they are not pets they are food.

I was to consider them pets I am afraid I would no longer be able to feed them of.

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Originally Posted by jben

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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I go through my racks twice a week. Once the babies hit around 30 grams they get pulled and set up in a holding bin. If you need smaller then that you have to keep a close eye on them as they grow pretty fast as babies. IMO checking their bin daily doesn't cause any problems.

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Originally Posted by Deborah

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.

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Ditto to what Deb said, we do the same here.

thank you all, you have been very helpfull as always. i will definitely take the advice and apply it. no more looking over them 10 times a day. they are breeding for feeders. i will continue to provide fresh food, water and tubs with little disruption and hopefully my colony will improve.