Re: babies! and questions
No, because even if they were, the offspring cannot absorb it anyway. There is that small time window you have to get colostrum in them, and if they don't get it, they go without.
Re: babies! and questions
The link I put up earlier states that colostrum in rats is only produced for 5 days from the beginning of lactation. Also , lactation is brought on by a hormone released from the stimulation of suckling the tit.
Re: babies! and questions
Quote:
Originally Posted by littleindiangirl
The link I put up earlier states that colostrum in rats is only produced for 5 days from the beginning of lactation. Also , lactation is brought on by a hormone released from the stimulation of suckling the tit.
Well see, if I'd read everything posted I would've known that..
Re: babies! and questions
I'm not a big supporter of allowing back to back captive breeding of rats over the long haul but I don't see that a pregnant cage mate taking on a few nursing rotations is likely in the end to do long term harm to her, the nursing rats or her unborn litter.
The natural mother would be likely doing the majority of the nursing as her supply of milk is more geared to her litter (this is common in all nursing mammals, we make the right amount of milk in the right quantities driven by the frequency and duration of the nursing activity). I think as long as both females are kept properly with access to loads of food and water, they'll do fine. Rats are by their very nature, are prolific breeders so I would think that nature likely built in an allowance for nursing and pregnancy occurring at the same time. In our captive populations we've found that they do better when we don't burn them out as quickly as a wild rat female might be, but I don't think the occasional event is going to do any great amount of harm.
