Litter size vs. coat colour in rats?

Are some colours more prolific than others?

This is unrelated to specific strains; just talking about your generic undocumented feeder rats.

I don't have a huge group to get examples from, but my blue self had 13 babies and my black hooded had 10.


I think that weight of the mommy is important to size of litter - I didn't breed either one of them until they were over 250 grams.

Back when I first started breeding rats and didn't know to buy high quality food I feed some cheap stuff and the rats didn't do to well they where malnourished. The litters were small and the pinks all looked like little runts except for the Rex babies they all did extremely well despite the cheap feed. The rex gene seems to make for a very robus rat that tends to throw large litters. Maybe there other factors duno, Just my 2 cents

Ever since then I've feed Mazuri and the avg litter is in the high teens with some in the twenties. When the girls are in their prime.

My brown rex(not sure on exact name) only have 6 or 7 babies her first litter, my black hooded rex had 13 her first litter and my Black rex with some white on her belly and I think chest had 16 her first litter but unfortunately she had a prolapse and I had to gas her....These were all rexes from my hairless females(I know bad to breed) first litter of only 3 babies that survived. These females were both bred at just under 200 grams and all had pretty good size litters.

i think the biggest factor i've noticed in size and health of litters is proper feeding , and proper maintenence . having said that , i do think the rex rats on average produce slightly larger litters . my dumbos average about 11 or 12 per litter while my rex females will give me 13 or 14 . in another year i'll have hopefully bred some blues a few times to see how they compare .

I have to agree with Larry on this, I switched from dog food to mazuri about 1 1/2 years ago and alot of the litters are in the high teens and some into the twenties. I picked up 20 females that were brown wild type looking rats from a friends closed colony, these brown rats are soo prolific and are throwing all kinds of colors. :w00t:

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Originally Posted by Larry Suttles

Back when I first started breeding rats and didn't know to buy high quality food I feed some cheap stuff and the rats didn't do to well they where malnourished. The litters were small and the pinks all looked like little runts except for the Rex babies they all did extremely well despite the cheap feed. The rex gene seems to make for a very robus rat that tends to throw large litters. Maybe there other factors duno, Just my 2 cents

Ever since then I've feed Mazuri and the avg litter is in the high teens with some in the twenties. When the girls are in their prime.

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I don't see a real pattern in our colony at all. I think it's more about the female rat being of proper age, body weight, good condition and fed very well before breeding and during pregnancy that more likely directly affects her ability to produce large, healthy litters. Also genetics of course. I always keep back a daughter or two from any breeder female that consistently produces big vibrant litters that grow into top feeders.

something else i do that seems to make a difference is this . i seperate the prego mothers form the rest of the breeding colony to give birth and raise her young . then once the babies have been weened i give the mother another week or two alone to build up a bit before putting her back with a male . i think it allows the females to regain some weight and makes sure she has a short break before getting prego again . if you leave them in the breeding group , they can become pregnent again within 3 or 4 days of giving birth . IMHO not a good thing to have them continuously pregnent .

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Originally Posted by markface

something else i do that seems to make a difference is this . i seperate the prego mothers form the rest of the breeding colony to give birth and raise her young . then once the babies have been weened i give the mother another week or two alone to build up a bit before putting her back with a male . i think it allows the females to regain some weight and makes sure she has a short break before getting prego again . if you leave them in the breeding group , they can become pregnent again within 3 or 4 days of giving birth . IMHO not a good thing to have them continuously pregnent .

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Sounds very similar to what we do with our adult female breeder rats. :)

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

Sounds very similar to what we do with our adult female breeder rats. :)

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I know a lot of people will say they leave their females with the 1.2 or 1.4 or whatever and let them raise them up, but that never works for me... if I pull the mother and let her give birth by herself I average having 12-14 pinks left at the end of the week.... if I leave a mother in, i will be surprised to find more than 8-10 on average, and not as plump and healthy as the mothers I pull.

I find 2 mothers together sometimes works, but in with the males and more than 1 extra female always hurts my production

years ago i used to just leave the females with the male to raise up the babies . i found it burns the females out alot quicker that way and production of babies dropped by the third or fourth litter . the way i do it now , my females are always plump and healthy when they go back in the males breeder tank . i get bigger litters with bigger individual babies this way .

Thanks folks; I figured that all might be the case. Not really breeding myself, but a friend is and she said she wanted to get more albinos in because they are more fertile. Not having heard anything to that effect here, I thought I would ask...and I am content with the answers. :-)

Well Jess I have "heard" that albinos are more fertile and also that they are a more defensive, aggressive female when with their litter. I've only used one albino myself and she was a prolific breeder but a difficult female to handle and overly dominant with all the other adult females in the colony so she was culled out. I don't know if albinos are truly more prolific or not but personally I don't care for their look (those pink eyes make me shudder lol) so I don't use them myself.

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Originally Posted by markface

years ago i used to just leave the females with the male to raise up the babies . i found it burns the females out alot quicker that way and production of babies dropped by the third or fourth litter . the way i do it now , my females are always plump and healthy when they go back in the males breeder tank . i get bigger litters with bigger individual babies this way .

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I completely agree with you Mark. Our females are of good size before they ever have that first litter, they are well rested away from males between litters and well fed during the time they are nursing. Most leave their individual maternity tanks carrying appropriate body mass and are nice and plump before going back into the breeding tubs. We've got one female here from our original group of females who is well over 2 years of age. HoneyChild is in excellent shape, looks like a far younger rat and is now enjoying her retirement. She consistently produced 15 young per litter until her last which was only 6 so we knew she was due for retirement. Now she hangs out with other females resting between litters or spends a few days with recently weaned females. She's a gem with settling in the new weanlings, busting up their little tiffs and mothering them a bit here and there.

Honey as a young top producing female with one of her typical litters of 15 big healthy pinks.

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...Litterof15.jpg

Markface wrote:
"Years ago i used to just leave the females with the male to raise up the babies . i found it burns the females out alot quicker that way and production of babies dropped by the third or fourth litter . the way i do it now , my females are always plump and healthy when they go back in the males breeder tank . i get bigger litters with bigger individual babies this way ."

This is the same thing that I do, with great results!