How big are your litters?

What's going on everyone. Just checking to see sort of for fun, how big are your rat litters? I average around 12-18.

This mama had a litter of 21! That's my biggest so far. She's only about 250g too. My minimum breeder female size.

Anyhow here she is and her litter after cleaning their tub in a freedom breeder 927.

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12-18 is pretty average to me but I have a few related females that tend to have 18-20 regularly. Largest litter I ever got was 23 but the mother was older and ended up abandoning five of the pups because it was more than she could handle. :/

I've had 6 litters so far with an average of 10-14. I had 2 with 4 in the beginning, but one u changed food, I started having more :)

Excited to see what comes in the future!


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I've been at this for over a yr or so, my moms average, 14-18 with the largest being over 20. I am amazed with how much I'm enjoying raising my own rodents!!


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I am a firm believer that larger litters are NOT better.

I would much rather get 10-12 pups from every female every month than have a female spit out 18-20 pups, lose six, and then not have another litter for 6-8 weeks.

I select all of my replacement animals from litters where the number of pups fall in line with what I am looking for.

My litters are pretty typically right around 12 babies. I personally prefers lightly smaller litters, like 6-8 is the perfect size in my opinion. At that number, the mom has no problem feeding everyone, and they grow quickly and are quite chubby. Larger litters are more likely to have higher mortality if the female can't feed everyone, especially if the mom is smaller in size or younger.

Mine are usually between 12-15. Largest I've ever had was 19; I use small cat litter boxes in my birthing rack and usually put two pregnant females in each tub. I've found that they will help each other out and nurse both litters back and forth. It seems to improve survival on the larger litters this way .

I average around 8 - 15. I'm also selecting for moms that have around 12 babies as the mortality rate is lower and they grow fatter faster and the moms have litters more regularly.

On average 14, biggest litters have been 18 and 19

Anyone talking about growth rates in smaller litters being higher is 100% correct! In the show business (well this is talking about mice specifically, but it transfers to rats, and ASFs also), we take litters down to 6 or less, and when compared to babies from litters 7+ they grow practically twice as fast, I would estimate 40% faster size increase. And they grow up to be healthier (and probably more nutritious!) mice with larger bodies and more fat and muscle.

Also, if you're looking for plenty of big pups for feeders, male pups grow faster than female pups. If you can tell the difference early on, and you're breeding strictly for feeders, it might not be a bad idea to keep more male babies around if you take out any pinkies for feeding to another critter.

Mine are between 8 and 12 pups.

Just started breeding rats but so far 15 and 16 were the first litters produced.

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Originally Posted by Rhasputin

Anyone talking about growth rates in smaller litters being higher is 100% correct! In the show business (well this is talking about mice specifically, but it transfers to rats, and ASFs also), we take litters down to 6 or less, and when compared to babies from litters 7+ they grow practically twice as fast, I would estimate 40% faster size increase. And they grow up to be healthier (and probably more nutritious!) mice with larger bodies and more fat and muscle.

Also, if you're looking for plenty of big pups for feeders, male pups grow faster than female pups. If you can tell the difference early on, and you're breeding strictly for feeders, it might not be a bad idea to keep more male babies around if you take out any pinkies for feeding to another critter.

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I know a number of big time rat breeders who culled their litters down to 6 babies maximum. Some of them would not sell rats to other breeders unless those breeders also culled, because they believed so strongly it was better for moms and babies. Those rats were on the show table and winning ribbons so much faster than any other rats. I never had the stomach to cull like that, but there's no denying smaller litters do fare better.

i get 12-15 pinkies per litter....i do not cull pinkies for the sake of trimming down litters, but i do feed them off to hatchling snakes as soon as possible until about 8-10 remain. the rest of the litter grow faster and momma rat is not worn down at weaning time, almost ready to be bred again.
whenever i want to groom replacement breeders, i cut down a litter to about 6, i then remove any males as soon as possible, then the remaining females stay with mom until they wean on their own.

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i get 12-15 pinkies per litter....i do not cull pinkies for the sake of trimming down litters, but i do feed them off to hatchling snakes as soon as possible until about 8-10 remain. the rest of the litter grow faster and momma rat is not worn down at weaning time, almost ready to be bred again.
whenever i want to groom replacement breeders, i cut down a litter to about 6, i then remove any males as soon as possible, then the remaining females stay with mom until they wean on their own.

My average litters range between 10-16, I feed them furry friends rodent fude. So they are getting healthy rat food not dog food the babies are big and healthy and the moms lay 6-7 litters before i replace them.

My rats always have 18+ for their first litter. After that the numbers start to drop and most end up having 13-16 on average. I too like smaller litters because they grow faster. I try to feed off the females first since the males get bigger faster.

I usually get litters varying a lot.. Some first-time mommas get 3-4 large pinkies, and then I'll get a first-time momma who has 10+ really small pinkies! It's always magical when you see the babies for the first time. :P

I rarely see less than 12 babies in my litters, females that produce less than 9 twice in a row gets culled out and replaced by a new female.
My rats are medium size, a bit on the small side, but produce lovely looking show quality rats, better with every generation.
I work a lot on the temperament and have been working on my lines for a little more than one year. In the beginning I had several females that dropped 16-24 babies per litter, but those babies were small and a bunch of them didn't make it. I still get happy when I get a litter of 16-19 now though, but most are, on average, 14.7 in numbers, so the average rat gives me babies in the 12-16 range.
I don't mate my females right away when they birth (the 24hrs after birth heat), I mate them again when I have removed all babies after 3-8 weeks and she comes in heat again from weaning the babies. For some females I cull/remove a whole litter of pinkies, but typically I will remove some as pinkies or babies to feed my young snakes, and keep a few to gain size and feed my adult snakes.

It took me over 2 years to breed a female to drop over 20 babies, the trick is having the moms to raise them. What I do is breed babies to give to wet nurse moms. I have 3 moms per tub to raise one batch of babies. I have 102 tubs going full time, I take the babies as soon as they are born and add them to the mix. I have found the babies grow twice as fast and are much healthier. When the number drop below 20 I will replace the breeder. I found by crossing the Himalayans I can make huge litters. The breeders will wear out fast but the largest nursing females I can produce can handle all the babies I give them. I know its weird but I have found this way far superior to produce more rats than any other way so far.