First preger!

Just pulled my first preger today, a beige hooded female mated to my hooded stud. I can't beleive how big they get! Hopefully she pops within the next 2 days and ill post pics :D

So excited! Btw any tips when I get my first litter? knowledge is power

Wow, thats the exact same pair that my first was. My only advice, is dont worry about it too much. I had that mom under a magnifying glass and worried about EVERYTHING lol. I shouldnt have interfered nearly as much as I did. Nothing bad happened, but you dont need to spend that kind of energy fretting. Be watchful, but let her do her job and keep her comfortable and happy and they'll do what they do best.

Congrats!

You don't have to do much. Mom does everything once the pups are born. You can give her some Ensure soaked food or a little yogurt to give her a boost in energy if you want.

Personally, I like putting in some toilet paper or shredded gift bag paper for the mom to use as nesting material. It's not necessary, but I do it anyway.

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Just to add onto nikki's nesting train. If you have any cheap old pillows you dont really use/want anymore, most(that ive encountered) have a fluffy, soft stuffing that makes a perfect nesting material. it balls up nicely but they can still seperate it and make tunnels and such. I usually just give them a handful or two, and tie it up in a pillowcase every once in a while to wash it. just my 2 cents.

Than"ks guys :P for nesting materiel I put in some torn up newspaper along with a thick layer of aspen.

I feed my pregnant mice milk bones and scrambled eggs to give em a little bit more of protein.

Your rat should love the newspaper. I wouldn't give them cotton stuffing though. That nesting material you can buy at pet stores are junk. My pregnant hamster actually choked on that and died :(

Wow seriously? I cant say ive heard any horror stories about it. Then again rats are a good amount smarter than hampsters. Unless they were having some serious digestive issues already(thats the only circumstance in which ive seen larger small animals eat their bedding)), I think they would be smart enough to not male that mistake.

Whatever you give her make sure there are no threads/strings. They can wrap around the pups. When I was young I had three rats, two females one male. I let them 'play' together and you can guess what happened. I gave them some fabric and they tore it up for their nest. A string got wrapped around one of the pups front paws and it ended up turning black and falling off. I kept her and she did fine.

What a bust... 5 still borns and 2 healthy babys... 7 is a very small litter :( I went ahead and froze the still borns. My gf was so distraught lol... Any suggestions on fixing this problem next time?

I dont understand what is going on... I just checked on them and another baby is dead... My gf started crying :/ hopefully the last baby survives or the gf says I have to feed the mom off lol