Big Litter

My favorite rat (shh, don't tell the others) is a blue hooded dumbo girl named Yoshi. She gave birth the other day to 18 pinkies! That is the biggest litter I have ever seen from one of my rats. And this was her first litter too! I'll be taking pictures today and posting them up. So many cute pink things!:P She was bred to a beige berkshire. His mother is supposed to be het for dumbo but my sister has not proved her out yet, so Bradley may carry it or not. We will see for sure if any of the babies are dumbo. :)

Wow, congrats. on the sake food! :salute:

Thanks. :P Some of them will be snake food, some will be kept as breeders. I hope to keep about 4 girls (or more, depending on if I can organize the animal room to accomodate more tubs. I am very interested to see what colors come out of this pairing. :)

Its good to keep babies from big litters...hopefully they can retain those good genetics and be great breeders...

Yea, I guess we will have to wait and see if her next litter is just as big. If it is, I'm keeping as many females from her litters as I can. I feel like I'm swimming in rodent babies right now. Yoshi gave birth a few days ago, Noel just gave birth tonight, one of my mice had a nice sized litter today and I'm expecting another 1-2 mouse litters in the next few days.

Congrats on the big litter and the many other litters as well!:D:P

Thanks. They are starting to develop color now. Some dark ones and some light ones. I can't wait! I really hope I have some dumbos in there. I love rats!:P

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Originally Posted by Jay_Bunny

Thanks. They are starting to develop color now. Some dark ones and some light ones. I can't wait! I really hope I have some dumbos in there. I love rats!:P

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I love seeing rat pups when they still have those eyes closed! When I volunteer at the reptile sanctuary I'm normally in the mouse & rat room now cleaning up after them and I see anywhere from a newborn litter to jumpy weaned rats.:D

I just got my first male rat and I already love him. He loves hangin' around me and doesn't wander off:)

Aww. Yea I saw pictures of him in your thread. He is such a cutie! I never thought I'd like rats as pets but I fell in love with them. Yoshi is a shoulder rat. She loves riding on your shoulder won't try and run off.

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Originally Posted by Jay_Bunny

Aww. Yea I saw pictures of him in your thread. He is such a cutie! I never thought I'd like rats as pets but I fell in love with them. Yoshi is a shoulder rat. She loves riding on your shoulder won't try and run off.

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Yeah I didn't really think I'd own rats until I came to this site. I blame this site for all of the good snake-related things that happen to me. From morphs to breeding BPs to rats. Everything. I will eventually make a thank you thread, I'm planning on it:D:P

Dont have tooo much fun breeding rats ;)

Yea I need to do one of those. Haha. A little over 3 years ago, I had only a leopard gecko. Now I have 8 ball pythons, 2 corn snakes, a boa, and I'm holding onto 2 rescues for my friend. I also have 11ish rats and a ton of mice. Wouldn't have these if I had not found this forum. Hahaha. :D

do you have this female separated?

If so, I would be very curious to see if all 18 survive.

I mean, nature doesn't supply them with 18 nipples or most likely enough milk for 18 offspring....

So if they all survive that would be pretty neat to know.

I didn't separate her from the male until about a day after she gave birth, so she might be pregnant again. I meant to pull him but I have had a busy busy week. I'm about to go up and see how she is doing and count the babies again.

I also just had another female drop a litter so I'm going to be counting those as well. I'll try to get pictures!

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Originally Posted by suzuki4life

do you have this female separated?

If so, I would be very curious to see if all 18 survive.

I mean, nature doesn't supply them with 18 nipples or most likely enough milk for 18 offspring....

So if they all survive that would be pretty neat to know.

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I've got a girl over here that consistantly throws litters in the upper teens, and they generally all survive. They do end up being quite a bit smaller than rats from other litters that are the same age if I don't throw another mother in there to help out.

She has 17 right now. This could have been a miscount (thought there was 18 when there was really 17) or she could have killed one. Either way the babies look great.

My sister has Yoshi's sister, a blue berkshire named Blue. She just had her first litter yesterday and had 16. Both girls are having big litters and I'm liking this. Hopefully they keep it up. :)

I have litters up to 14 make it through just fine all the time. Some of the babies are smaller, but once they get to be a few weeks old they start munching on food and they all catch up.

Her litter is down to 14 now. They are almost a week old now. They are getting their color in now. I've got several berks, some dark hooded (could be agouti or black), and some light hooded. All will be het for blue and dumbo, though the father's mother carries the dumbo gene, so I could get lucky and get some dumbos out of this litter. :)

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Originally Posted by tomfromtheshade

I have litters up to 14 make it through just fine all the time. Some of the babies are smaller, but once they get to be a few weeks old they start munching on food and they all catch up.

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separated with only one mother nursing?

I have litter lumps in my tubs with over forty babies ( I run 1.8 in my tubs) and I personally am a big advocate for communal nursing. I don't see the die offs when I pluck a few from a nest for an order and have experienced no issues with mothers about killing future litters as long as I leave about half of the litter intact. I am considering more about nursing tubs as an experiment, but still my mind set is that a nursing tub for 6 rats will take up half the space I can house 72 breeders in.

With sub par food ( I am currently using Zeigler over Mazuri, big mistake) My weaned size takes 3 weeks (which is 4 days over previous times.)


I will be changing back to Mazuri and continuing my previous breeding measures.

I usually separate mothers and let them nurse alone. I just had two females together to nurse their babies and they fought over the litters really bad. A few of the babies had large gashes, some so severe I had to cull them. So now, both of those females nurse alone. I have two girls that I am raising up together. They are sisters and I plan on keeping them together through breeding as well as nursing.