Worst Litter Ever

Well folks, went against my usual rule of thumb about buying obviously pregnant female breeder rats from my local pet store....here's the result and I am kicking myself.

I was in our fav pet store the other week, checking out a tank of huge male rats with an eye for BCI feeding potential. Well a big husky marked one stood up and to my surprise not only doesn't it have the standard male equipment but it's hugely pregnant! Called an employee over and decided to purchase the female against my better judgement. Hey I like a bargain and I'm thinking...she's ready to drop...I get an almost free litter and get the poor thing out of the male cage since somebody obviously messed up here (this pet store is usually very good at sexing and doesn't leave adult rats of opposite sex together).

What a mess! The poor female did in fact deliver 2 days later....nearly bleed out on me, was so stressed and sick she couldn't care for her litter.....out of 12 born only 9 survived. I had to quickly switch some other nursing females around to free up my albino female, Snowball, whose an experienced mother plus has fostered pinks for me before with no problems.

Snow has taken on the litter (which were pretty puny at birth) and has culled out 3 more...so I'm down to 6 pinks. The original female has survived but I was shocked at how thin she was once she dropped the litter and I'm not sure if the bad delivery combined with stress will still kill her.

So moral of the story for me....follow my usual procedures, stick with my instincts about buying healthy unbred females and building them up a bit prior to breeding (or just raise my own future breeders)....healthier females make for healthier litters and that's just smarter for me financially plus way less stress and work for me. I k now they are "only" rats but I hate to lose any of them needlessly. Up until now I've only lost 1 pink out of 78 born so it's been a frustrating experience and a bit of a waste of resources.


~~Jo~~

/comfort and hugs

On the bright, while she is just a rat, you should take comfort that you have given her the best chance you can at surviving, much better than she would have had if she had dropped the litter in a cage full of males at the pet store.

jo,

what a kind and generous heart you have. please don't dimish that part of this! that poor little girl would have died in the petstore... you have saved her life. even if she never breeds again and is only fattened up for feeding... it's a better way to go than bleeding to death in a pit of males with no one caring if she lived or died.

extra karma points for you from the rattie gods!!!

Aww thank you, what lovely comments! I do try to be realistic about the rats and why I raise them but as much as my head is involved, so is my heart...so it's always a balance.

I did worry that she would not do well in that cage of such big males and I doubt with that delivery, either her or any of her pinks would have made it. I just hate any animal dying wastefully and needlessly, whether it's a pet or a animal meant for food so I figured bring her home and see how it goes.

Next time though, I may just draw it to the employees attention as they have their own rat colony and as I said, are normally fantastic at not allowing this to happen. Then they can deal with it and I don't have to run about switching up litters to find the best female to foster and such. Guess I'm spoiled as my females do so well I'm unused to difficulties or lost pinks/breeder females.

Oh btw her name's Alita and yes I do name my breeding colony LOL. Their offspring are referred to generically as "breakfast, lunch and dinner" (the runts of any litters being nicnamed "snackfood") but I do like naming my breeders.


~~Jo~~

YOU ARE GRRRRRRRRRREAT!!!!!!!


(just had to say it again) :)

snackfood....LOL!

Well on the up side, just this minute went to check on another breeding female who was due to deliver her first litter today or tomorrow and look what I found!

This is Flash giving birth to her first litter with a healthy female rat's usual no fuss, no muss and no mess way of doing things. She's still busy back there so I'll peek in later and see what the full count ended up being. Wow what a difference - this is what I'm used to seeing so explains my shock when Alita delivered with so much difficulty!

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...irstlitter.jpg

~~Jo~~

i had an auntie named alita... :) haven't heard that name since.

glad you are having a good litter this time jo... she looks so intent delivering her pups...

My friend's daughter was with me when I got her so I let her name the new female. She picked the name Alita...apparently she just loves this name and uses it for all her dolls and such (she's 6)...no one knows why though as she has no friend or relative with that name.

I just hope Flash's young don't have their mother's ways. She's named Flash for being the fastest, wiggliest, hardest to hold rat I've ever met! Nice tempered but man...that's one fast female! LOL

~~Jo~~

be sure to keep us posted on how many she births ;)

She's been done for awhile...sorry got busy and didn't get the photo resized and posted (I'm watching a friend's 6 year old plus my own almost 5 year old...ack!)

Here's the new litter....11 big healthy pinks....none lost at birth....all are kicking and squeeking and looking for food LOL. When I removed Flash to check the pinks most of them were latched on and nursing strongly. She did beautifully for a first litter. This pic I took purposely wide to show the entire birthing area...hard to believe she'd just had 11 babies in that spot isn't it!

After I did the quick photo, Flash got busy and hauled them all off across the tank and set up directly beside her water bottle. A few of my females do this....smart things can then nurse and all they have to do to get a drink themselves is turn their heads!

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...than1hrold.jpg
Litter of 11 pinks less than 1 hour old born March 4, 2006 (Flash x Casanova)

This is the litter I will be following with pictures and measurements as they go through each stage of development.


~~Jo~~

aahhhhh they are so cute. look just like mouse pinkies :)

LOL yep just a whole sight bigger!


~~Jo~~

Had to resurrect this old thread to update you all on Alita the pet store preggie rat rescue.

After the disaster of her first litter I've let her rest and build back up. She found a good buddy in another female we have called Midnite and they both went into breed with Casanova when they looked in perfect condition to do so. Well Sunday Midnite delivered her first litter of 14 nice healthy pinks but Alita was still holding on and probably the most pregnant rat I've ever seen. Poor thing was as big as a tennis ball and I swear could barely touch ground. After her horrible first litter I was worried that maybe she was retaining her litter too long.

Shouldn't have worried really. Yesterday with perfect ease she popped out 16 nice chubby pinks. No mess like last time and she immediately did the usual excellent care female rats do for their young. I guess her previous litter was such a disaster as she was in awful shape after she delivered. I couldn't tell till then how thin she actually was under the preggie bulk. This time around she was nice and chunky herself so obviously better able to deliver such a nice big healthy litter for us.

I'm really glad Alita's done well. I try to not get overly attached to our rats, but the breeders are special to me and Alita especially so. Oh btw we kept back two of her females from that first litter....a really nicely marked black and white husky I call Panda and a nice self colored ruby eyed beige that we call Ruby. They were very big female weans and just looked like nice future breeders for us. They are having the equivalent of a rat's heaven on earth, hanging out with two of HoneyChild's daughters (both beige hoodeds) called Tazz and Spazz. Nothing funnier than 4 young females without a rattie care in the world LOL.

jo i agree... that was worth sharing twice!!!!

congrats... i'm soooo pleased for ya! (and esp for her)

SO great to hear that she has fully recovered from that unnecessary ordeal! The poor thing! You're like the most awesome rat-mommy I know!

Thanks ladies! Breeder rats or not, I just hate seeing any animal bred when they aren't healthy enough to do so or it will be a waste of the breeding stock or their offspring because of poor care or human stupidity. Just drives me nuts so I'm really glad that Alita is fine and obviously a very nice breeding female when cared for properly.

Good stuff Jo! I would be worried that I would get attached to all of them. Rats are the cutest when they are just weaned. Do you ever feed off the breeders or will you keep them until they die of natural causes?

good to hear that alita is doing so well now! what a nice addition to your breeding stock. :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jglass38

Good stuff Jo! I would be worried that I would get attached to all of them. Rats are the cutest when they are just weaned. Do you ever feed off the breeders or will you keep them until they die of natural causes?

---

Sorry I missed your question Jamie. We give all our breeders a chance to prove themselves with a litter or two, if they aren't able to breed or prove poor breeders we feed them off. For our good breeders we will keep them until they are ready to retire from the breeding colony and then they will just live out their lives quietly. We figure we owe them that much as they contribute a lot to the health and well being of our snakes and besides by that time we've had them a long while and they all have names (I just can't feed off something that has a name to something else that has a name...call me a softie but I can't).

Thanks for all your kind words everyone. Alita and her 16 young are doing very well and even if she hadn't done well....well she was exempt from the above LOL. I just couldn't have fed her off after all that poor rat went through but thankfully she's turned out to be a spectacular breeding female.

Good stuff!!

jo,

i'm exactly the same... names don't get eaten!