Babies!!! Help!

Oh my (insert diety)! I went upstairs a bit ago for the first time today and alls I heard was a chorus of squeaks! I ran over and sure enough...BABIES! I don't know what to do. I guess Regina was pregnant after all. It couldn't have been Frank's babies because I haven't had Alfred for that long. I'm lost, I'm confused, this is unexpected, what do I do?

*passes out*

First of all.. relax. Rodents are good at taking care of their young. You may want to remove all other mice from the cage with the mom, because they may attack her babies, or stress her out. Mice are weaned at around 3-4 weeks.

Okay, I orignally took Alfred out but I'll take out Frank too. She won't get lonely by herself? And I was afraid of them suffocating...she's laying on them. I want to clean the tank because a bit of the chips are bloody..can I?

Okay to clarify...these are rats NOT mice correct? If you had a female exposed to males you should have been expecting this and been prepared.

At this point what you should do is remove the males and leave this new mother alone with her young. Do NOT mess with them unless there are obvious dead babies (though normally the mother rat will simply eat them or move them away from her live young). Make sure she has access to fresh water DAILY...lots of good food including extra proteins to keep her healthy as she raises them. Leave the messy bedding till tomorrow...she'll push it to the side at some point and you can just pull it out quietly.

Leave her alone with her young...do not mess around with them...she'll know what to do. Rats lay on their young to nurse. This is normal, she is NOT smothering them. Rats nurse from above or from the side (like a cat would do)...both are fine and she is keeping them fed and warm.


~~Jo~~

Mice do not get lonely. Rats will.. but not mice. Mice are territorial and sometimes kill each other.

She's just nursing them by laying on them.. trust me they're fine. Leave the bloody wood chips for now. Bothering her now is a great way to get her to eat her babies.

Okay just so I'm not confused or confusing anyone here with all this mice talk. Her sig says 1.2 Ratties so I'm safe to assume this female is a female rat?



~~Jo~~

Oh.. rats. Well, same rules apply. :)

Actually having been the world's most unsuccessful mouse breeder despite Daniel's valiant attempts to mentor me and having roaring great success with my rat breeding colony I'd have to disagree there with you April.

Mice seem to be by their nature not nearly as good at parenting as rats are. Male mice are more aggressive than male rats to each other and to their young. They seem very different to me as far as their temperment, care and breeding but perhaps that is just my take on it.

Kelly, just to let you know hon if you have two males and one female....it's 2.1 not 1.2. Best of luck with your first litter. They are really interesting creatures to watch and generally excellent with their young. I've only had one female thus far that refused to care for hers but thank goodness I had another nursing female who adopted that litter as her own.


~~Jo~~

Yes you are right Jo.. I just meant that my instructions should work well for rats too (ie leaving her alone)

Just to clarify, mice and rat breeding is NOT the same thing. Mice and rats both have different requirements as well as personalities/behavior and you have to deal with both accordingly. If you treat mice like you would rats, they will get stressed out and will eat their young. Rats, on the other hand, do better when separated singly into their own, small(5-10 gallon) cage or large critter keeper. It keeps them in closer proximity to their babies, and even new, inexperienced moms do better this way.

What are you feeding the rats? They need a good quality diet containing grains, fruits, nuts, and a good protein source such as a HIGH quality dog food(Wellness Senior, Nutro Senior, etc). Whatever dog food you get, it needs to have a protein % of less than 20%, or the rats will come down with protein sensitivity issues(scabbies underneath chin, on sides and scratching alot). If you do a source for rat food mix here, I have written a good recipe for a mix that will provide everything your rats will need. In addition, you need a good source of lab blocks to provide the essential nutrients that the mix may not provide. Mazuri, Purina or Harlan Teklad. You can do a search around the internet and find a good source who sells them.

Mother rats with babies are VERY protective, and you should not handle her or the babies excessively. Always remove her before messing with the babies or you may get a nasty bite(rat holds on and bites to the bone-NOT a warning bite). She needs alot of good protein while she is nursing such as cooked chicken bones, meaty table scraps, hardboiled(with shell on) or scrambled eggs, etc.

And please, if you don't want babies, and insist on keeping all 3 together, get the females spayed or get the males neutered. OR the best situation would be to get the female another FEMALE friend(after your female has weaned her litter, of course), and keep them separated at ALL TIMES.

Hope this has helped a bit and if you need any other assistance, just let us know. :)

Becky what do you recommend to keep mice as least stressed as possible?

I set them up 1.2 or right now I have 1.3 in a 10-gallon and will take the male out in a week or so. Then I feed and water them, and leave them ALONE. I may bother them once a week and that is to clean and feed. They have babies(FAT BABIES), large litters and rarely, if ever, cannibalize one, single baby. I have some moms that I "know" very well, and can mess with them and their babies without a single protest, but others I have learned that they don't tolerate it well, so I just leave them alone as much as possible.

Make sure they have enough food, bedding to burrow in, shredded paper, toilet paper tubes, soft things(kleenes, paper towels), plenty of water and make very sure they are in a cool place. They don't appreciate being hot and don't produce well at all. Cold doesn't seem to bother them much I've found. I kept most of the mice in the garage all winter(what winter, it's Texas), and they did fine.

I feed mine lab blocks(Mazuri or Harlan) as well as some Purina Senior, some occassional baby food such as sweet potatoes, chicken and gravy, turkey and gravy, and some fruits such as apples, bananas. No citrus, the same as rats. They like the wild bird food that has the nuts, fruit and black oil sunflower seeds in it. Makes 'em fatties!

Ok.. do you think keeping them in groups of more than 1.3 would stress them out? Mine have lots of bedding and I give them paper towel tubes and egg crates to hide in and chew on. They always have food and water, and I'm going to order the mazuri lab blocks for them (can't find it locally anywhere grrr)

I don't bother them either except for cage cleaning.

Shop vac's make great cage cleaners, and if you accidently suck up a rat you automatically have a p/k feeder for your snakes.

Haven't ever seen a shop vac kill even a baby rat. A friend of mine, who is a breeder, accidentally sucks them up all the time. When she looks in the tub full of bedding, she sees the baby looking up at her like "WAHOO! LET'SDOITAGAIN!". Haha!

I kept my mice at 1.2 and they did awesome until I separated the male out. The females are raising the last group of little turds, but they also adopted 5 newborn pinks from the feed store(needed pinks for the cornsnake). I put them in with one mom who I knew was a very good mom, and she did just fine.

The least you can do to maintain them and keep them healthy and fed, the better. I keep 3 tanks in my garage. One 10g full of 10 smallish females, 1 10g full of 10 bigger females, and one 10g with various sized males. The tanks are covered with thick towels just in case it gets below 50 degrees, and they also are sitting on top of our stand-up freezer so the heat from that will heat the cages a bit. Works great. Inside the house I have 1 10g with 1.3 that I just put together tonight(they only have dog food unfortunately as the lab blocks don't come in until Friday), and they squabbled a bit, but otherwise are fine. The other tank is filled with 2 moms, 5 very hoppity hoppers, and 5 pinks, all fine and dandy.

What I have found is(and I have bought/raised/borrowed from school alot of mice) that Petsmart's mice are incredibly healthy, produce good litters and are good moms. Even as first time moms they do a great job and I have never had any cannibalizing from them.

Now, mice from Petco or other "off" shops don't fair as well. Don't have as healthy of immune systems, litter sizes aren't as big and they may cannibalize their young regardless of the reason(just because, usually).

This is just my experience in all of this and not meant to be any sort of statistic or anything. I guess I just have good luck with the little buggers.

Also, I have found that when I keep a good number of males(10+) together, there are rarely any fights and they do not smell(other than the dirty cage smell). I have a friend who has only one of my males and you can smell him(in his newly cleaned cage, mind you) from across the room. Why? I have no idea... Nasty thing.

I don't know, mice are just weird, but once you figure out the little kinks in their behavior, it's all gravy.

Hope that answered some of your questions. If ya have any more, just ask :)

Well for one, not to be rude, but please don't have such an attitude when responding. I have 1.2 rats. Frank is a girl. And how am I supposed to "expect" babies when I have only had my male for 2 weeks. Correct me if I'm wrong but gestation period for rats is 21+ days. Please don't treat me like I'm irresponsible.

Thanks for the help but when I was asking for it I was hoping a semi-warm helping squad not the Spanish Inquisition coupled with those thinking that I am incompetent. I'll be sure to go elsewhere for help next time.

Becky, I have noticed the same thing. Unfortunately my petsmart (that I work at) only sells male mice, and the only place I've found to sell female mice at reasonable prices is petco.. but they take horrid care of their animals! They had flies in their mouse cages. :bleh:

Perhaps I will have to go to the reptile swap to get some girls.. the petco females are cannibalizing like mad, (killing each other as well as babies)

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Originally Posted by HadesBP18

Well for one, not to be rude, but please don't have such an attitude when responding. I have 1.2 rats. Frank is a girl. And how am I supposed to "expect" babies when I have only had my male for 2 weeks. Correct me if I'm wrong but gestation period for rats is 21+ days. Please don't treat me like I'm irresponsible.

Thanks for the help but when I was asking for it I was hoping a semi-warm helping squad not the Spanish Inquisition coupled with those thinking that I am incompetent. I'll be sure to go elsewhere for help next time.

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I did not see any attitudes :) Always remember....alot is lost in internet converstion.....so cause of concern may seem harsh at times....

....All great advice.

And YES. Some pet stores love to 'dump off' preg. mice and rats to avoid having to care for the babies. I usually watch for this when I go in pet stores because you can actually get a bunch of mice or rats for the price of one. But for someone like Hades, this stuff can become a pain when you don't expect it. I am sure they will all be ok...mice and rats are very easy to keep and breed...no matter what anyone else says:)

Kelly you have my apology for assuming Frank was a male when indeed she is not. I hope that you have success with this unplanned litter so that you end up with either good healthy pet or feeder rats.



~~Jo~~

Quote:

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Originally Posted by srozell

Shop vac's make great cage cleaners, and if you accidently suck up a rat you automatically have a p/k feeder for your snakes.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by SatanicIntention

Haven't ever seen a shop vac kill even a baby rat. A friend of mine, who is a breeder, accidentally sucks them up all the time. When she looks in the tub full of bedding, she sees the baby looking up at her like "WAHOO! LET'SDOITAGAIN!". Haha!

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ROFLMAO! :rofl:

Come on over to my place and you can suck up about 25! I am being overrun after having gotten lazy seperating the boys n girls (actually i was axe to elbows int he site upgrade). I had to turn some 91 qt sterelites into temp rat housing - truly a sad looking solution. If we had freezer room I would ice them.

Geeze too bad you aren't close to me Matt. The pet stores up here were crying for feeder rats last week. Didn't get their outside supplier order in and the one store that does some breeding was way behind for all sizes of feeder rats other than unweaned sizes. They asked me if we had any spares but sadly we are just barely keeping up right now LOL.



~~Jo~~

Thank you and yes I really did appreciate the help everyone.

I got some Classic Blend Mouse and Rat lab blocks and also some Sunscription Vita Rat and Mouse Formula Garden Vegetables. So I've got protein and vegetables/fruit. I figured I'd mix it all together and feed it to her daily. Is this a good diet for her and the others?

Making your own mix would be healthier for her and cheaper for you to buy. Keep the lab blocks. I have no idea what the other food mix is. If it has dried corn, alfalfa pieces, those colored pieces that have no nutritonal value and seeds, then that is not a good diet.

A good diet consists of:
-puffed wheat and rice
-cereals such as any of the Kashi brand
-cheerios
-tri-colored pasta
-old-fashioned oatmeal(rolled oats)
-dried split peas and lentils
-dried fruit and nut mix from Walmart
-roasted in-shell peanuts(NO salt)
-A HIGH quality senior dog food that has a protein % of LESS than 20%. I use Wellness Senior but not everyone is willing to pay $12 for a 6lb bag. Use Nutro Natural Senior, or another good-quality senior dog food. NO Ol' Roy. Even dogs shouldn't have to eat that mess.
-box of Raisin Bran or similar
-Find a bag of black oil sunflower seeds that has some fruits and nuts with it(I found a bag at WalMart in the wild bird food section)

Mix it all together and feed in conjunction with the lab blocks. This will be a healthy diet and will allow her to keep her weight as she nurses those babies. Feed her what you are eating such as cooked, meaty bones, hardboiled or scrambled eggs, etc. No citrus such as oranges, grapefruit, etc. It wreaks havoc with their kidneys and liver, especially male rats. You can feed her all sorts of veggies except for lettuce(smelly, runny stool will result), onions and no avocado unless it's already made into guacamole.

That should about cover it. Any food mix you can buy at a pet store(unless it is Regal Rat) is, in fact, crap. You will not have healthy rats nor wil you have healthy babies.

And no worries about having a female rat with a male name, LoL. I have two females named Harry and Lloyd(named after the characters in Dumb and Dumber) and they actually come to their names.

I hope this helped a bit and good luck with the babies. Sorry the girl came to you pregnant. It never helps to not be prepared for these things.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SatanicIntention

Haven't ever seen a shop vac kill even a baby rat. A friend of mine, who is a breeder, accidentally sucks them up all the time. When she looks in the tub full of bedding, she sees the baby looking up at her like "WAHOO! LET'SDOITAGAIN!". Haha!

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Clearly your shop vac needs more power. If the mice think it's just a "ride", you are not likely to be cleaning the bacteria right out of the cage. I might reccommend a Nitros upgrade. :D

*giggle* It's "just" a Craftsman 5hp 12gal big honkin' thing of a shop vac. I keep my female rats in a huge 3'x2'x4' homemade cabinet cage(made out of melamine) and it gets all 4 levels of bedding out and I still have room for all 11 girl rats, LoL. No worries about bacteria, it gets scrubbed with chlorhexidine each and every time.

I might need that NO2 upgrade though. I could probably drive the thing afterwards, haha!

My dad accidentally sucked a baby chick up in a shop vac when he was vaccuming their little enclosure. Alls he did was open up the vac and it was sitting in there peeping away. Hehe

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SatanicIntention

*giggle* It's "just" a Craftsman 5hp 12gal big honkin' thing of a shop vac. I keep my female rats in a huge 3'x2'x4' homemade cabinet cage(made out of melamine) and it gets all 4 levels of bedding out and I still have room for all 11 girl rats, LoL. No worries about bacteria, it gets scrubbed with chlorhexidine each and every time.

I might need that NO2 upgrade though. I could probably drive the thing afterwards, haha!

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you know if u reverse the hose so that its blowing out u could set up drag racing runs late at night all you'de need is a frickin long extension chord

How many babies did she end up having Kelly?

That mix Becky suggested may seem like a lot but believe me it lasts a long time and you don't have to spend much really. I buy a box of store brand cereal for instance at WalMart that is identical to the brand name Total (about $4) for about $1.97. I get really great quality dog food free samples at a local pet store. A lot of it can even be the ends of your own cereal so you don't waste....my rats love the last handful or two of Banana Nut Crunch that no one around here will use up LOL. I use up a lot of leftovers on them that would otherwise get tossed out (scraps of cooked meat, bones, extra cooked pasta, stuff like that).

I love that the rat colony efficiently turns that stuff into big fat baby rats for me! Just had another female deliver a litter of 12 today and my other female is nursing her litter of 15 pups (well 13 since Malachi ate two last night LOL).


~~Jo~~

Quote:

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Originally Posted by alexrls

you know if u reverse the hose so that its blowing out u could set up drag racing runs late at night all you'de need is a frickin long extension chord

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Personally I think Jet fuel is a better option than an extention chord.

In practice however, I am limited like everyone else.

However, the thought of setting up the vaccuum to blow instead of suck inspires interesting images of force feeding....

....me thinks this needs it's own thread.. .or section..

Well my mom's dachsund is fed Nutro so I may have that covered depending on the protein levels in it. And my niece is addicted to Cheerios so we have plenty of them. I'll just make a shopping list :)

She had 12 babies but one of them recently died :( I don't know why. I don't know if I should take it out or not. I heard that they usually eat their babies? Or is that mice? I don't want her to go on a rampage if she finds one missing.

Nutro lite variety is a fantastic dog food for rats.. the protein is only 14%. All the other varieties have higher protein.

Remove the dead one. She will not miss it, and if you leave it and she doesn't eat it, it will start to stink and grow bacteria (not what you want)

I remove whole litters from mom rats (freezer trip) and they never go on rampage.

Yep just reach in a grab it out. She's likely far too busy to even miss it. I regularily remove fuzzie or pup sized rats from the nursing females to feed them off and they don't seem to be bothered much by it. Do watch your fingers though, some females can be quite protective and will nip when you get close to their litter. I have one Albino female rat this is just a tiger when she's nursing but fine otherwise.

12 is a nice sized litter so if one didn't make it that's still pretty good really. Don't be surprised if the female splits her litter into two nesting areas and moves back and forth between them or splits then puts them back together. Seems they do that and Emily and I were laughing about it in another thread as both of us had been "helping" the mother rat when she knew what she was doing all along LOL. Don't be surprised as well by all the squeeking the little boogerheads do. They are like leeches on the mom rat and complain loudly when she dares leave them to get a snack or a drink (typical kids eh! LOL)


~~Jo~~

I know...alls I hear is a chorus of peeps at 3 o clock in the morning. By the way I think Frank is pregnant. Her sides have been bulged for the past 2 days and she has been looking a bit more chunkier than her usual slender build. I just went and bought a new setup for her. Hopefully this time I'll be ready :) What should I do if she has the babies before I move her into the new tank? Or should I move her today? Thanks!

When she has her babies, don't move her for at least a few days. Either move her now, or leave her and remove the male.