ONE baby...

Well, one of my best Siamese female rats had... one baby today. I know this is it now because this morning I saw the one, and thought, oh she's probably not done having them.. well tonight, still one!! Sigh.. she has produced 15 for me in the past.. maybe she is ready to be retired (read: fed to my friend's large BCI.)
I was also thinking of just sneaking the baby in with my other female who's due to pop any day now, and rebreeding her to see if anything improves. I know she didn't have any and eat them; there is no blood and the shavings were new yesterdya and still clean... :O

How old is she Gin?

I have to admit, she is an older lady. Not scrawny and unhealthy-old, but I would estimate about a year (pretty old considering the ages of my other girls.) You would never know by looking at her; really active, good weight and healthy gal.

She's probably gone into menopause and isn't fertile anymore(hence the once baby). I would retire her, sad she has done all of that work and only gets to be fed off to a snake, but I guess that's how some things go.

I wouldn't rebreed her. Once rats reach around 12-14 months, they go into menopause and their pelvic canal fuses. The opening is very small, so if they do try to give birth, babies can get stuck, causing jeopardy to the mom and all of the remaining babies.

aw poor momma. i have a momma rat that just gave birth to only 2 babies--she is getting older, though not a year old yet, but this will be her last litter and once they are weaned she will be a companion to my other breeding females. fyi--it's not always messy when momma's eat their young. i caught one of my females in the act of finishing off a runt baby a while back and there was no evidence left over at all. i wouldn't have even noticed that anyone was missing until i cleaned the cage at which time i would have counted the babies.

I'm just starting to retire a group of females. HoneyChild may be bred one more time, likely not....she's approaching the 12 to 14 month old age range. She just hangs out with my next generation females that aren't old enough to breed yet.

I'm always amazed Emily at how clean those momma rats are about everything...disposal of culled young, birthing, all that stuff...they sure keep everything tidied up.

it always amazes me too--how can they give birth to 16+ babies and there not be a trace of the process? the only evidence that momma gave birth is that there are a buncha babies in the tub with her! :P

Good old Mother Nature at work. If they left any trace of the birthing they'd be found by predators pretty fast I would think. Glad I'm not a rat though...go over there...give birth to a gazillion babies on your own....oh and clean up that mess!...daddy?....oh he's somewhere else being a lazy butt and having a snack and a nap most likely. LOL

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

Glad I'm not a rat though...go over there...give birth to a gazillion babies on your own....oh and clean up that mess!...daddy?....oh he's somewhere else being a lazy butt and having a snack and a nap most likely. LOL

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and that's so different from humans? :O

lol!
Male animals have it so easy in captivity; however in nature, they have to "duke it out" to see who breeds.. spoiled little breeders!

An update; the one baby and mom are doing great (except she dug the shavings into a huge mound that touched the waterbottle nozzle, which made things a soppy mess this morning; don't worry, I cleaned up, lol.) I am wondering, maybe this baby will grow faster and be more robust than one from a normal litter, due to the individual attention maybe? I wouldn't be afraid of it passing on "bad genes" since this mom has had nice litters before; it may be a keeper..

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Originally Posted by mlededee

and that's so different from humans? :O

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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Good one Em!

Gin, I bet that one baby will be a very fat well fed one (you should call it Uno or something funny like that). Anytime I've had a smaller litter they seem to be porkers since they don't have to fight for the 12 available teats.

Cool; I was debating on feeding it to my horned frog, but I grew a little bit attached to the tiny thing; it is small for a pinkie; maybe she did eat the sibs for smoe reason..?

You'll probably never know Gin and hard to say. Either she'll have tons of milks for that one pinkie or if it's tiny and weak it won't stimulate her milk production enough and die or she may cull it herself. Only time will tell.

On my rats I will rebreed them after a bad litter to make sure ... they are usually removed from the colony for this.

Every now and then I come across a great female that is at the end of her breeding cycle. Rather than feeding her off I'll keep giving her litters. I read somewhere that mice can be kept lactating for up to 6 months by continually putting oung litters on them ... I havent done specific testing on this, but one of my females has been going for about 3 months.

As producing litters takes alot out of the females I have them on a special diet. It has alot of carbs, higher protein, higher crude fat, and bones for calcium.

Bryan