Heres hoping :D

So now I have 3 prego rats and :O and.... five prego mice :D.

I have heard that mice are harder to keep and breed due to moms eating them so we'll see. But my first girl (rat) just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Shes a 3 time mom now so no worries like with my other two who are first timers.

Wish me luck.

Good Luck! :P

Yep, from all i have read, mice are hard to breed. I only have 1 bp, so I got 2 mice from the pet store (they were jumpers) and put them together in a 10 galon aquarium. Lots of food and water and about a month later I got 9 babies. They are now 2 week old and are starting to crawl around.

Both mommy and daddy mice take care of the babies. If mommy is taking a break, daddy is right there with the babies keeping them warm!!!

it is incredible to watch them.

Good luck with your preggos!!!

Thanks I caught my male (mouse) breeding two more females last night..From the sounds of thing it was less than romantic. My one big mom rat still hasn't given birth :mad: she just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Came in last night and she was laying on her back in the thick bedding ... I wish she would just pop already.. :D

Sounds like that rat has a nice big litter brewing in there. She'll likely pop soon enough. Congrats on all your rodents doing so well. I'm going to restart my mouse breeding efforts next month. I have such ease with the rat colony but continue to have issues trying to get mice to breed, not eat their young or kill off each other. :(

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by frankykeno

Sounds like that rat has a nice big litter brewing in there. She'll likely pop soon enough. Congrats on all your rodents doing so well. I'm going to restart my mouse breeding efforts next month. I have such ease with the rat colony but continue to have issues trying to get mice to breed, not eat their young or kill off each other. :(

---

See thats my thing with the mice I haven't had any pop yet I got three that look like golf balls. LOL as for the rats they like teenagers.. give them food and water put one guy in a close space with three or four girls turn the lights out and ones bound to get knocked up. :D Mice are like cannibal parents with a chip on their shoulder. :D

Thanks guys I'll get me some pics up when they pop.

From my experience, the rats that are obviously pregant have larger litters. I have had dozens of rats that I could not even tell they were pregnant and they give me 10-11 babies and most of the ones that I could tell gave me 14-15

Well this girl look like a hairy softball. How many can they nurse.

They can nurse alot. We have had many litters with 20 or better. Mom just usually splits them up into different nests. It helps to have another female that can nurse some but you don't always one that can. Sometimes we may lose one or two in the really big litters but most of the time everything works out ok.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mistino

They can nurse alot. We have had many litters with 20 or better. Mom just usually splits them up into different nests. It helps to have another female that can nurse some but you don't always one that can. Sometimes we may lose one or two in the really big litters but most of the time everything works out ok.

---

Thanks Monica!

Will a non prego rat nurse. I wouldn't think so due to them not lactating but I could be wrong.

I don't think so. But you may have another female that is pregnant and you just don't know it yet.

Well I have two or three that are a week or two behind her so if I see that shes having trouble I just put a couple of them on with the other females..

Thanks agian

Just keep an eye on them and if she looks like she is not taking care of them then you may want to move some. But I'm sure she will do fine. It is not too often that I move babies to other females.

Out comes the rat expert.

*hijack*

Hey Monica, glad to see you here. Make sure you and Tim set aside some het albino females for me this year, that little boy I got from ya'll is growing like a weed and needs more than 1 girlfriend.

Quote:

---

the rats they like teenagers.. give them food and water put one guy in a close space with three or four girls turn the lights out and ones bound to get knocked up. :D Mice are like cannibal parents with a chip on their shoulder. :D

---

Omg too funny and so true! As far as the nursing question, I've had a few deal with litters up to 18 and they seem fine and will split the litter as Monica mentioned. I do tend to plan to have more than one litter at a time and have fostered off some but mostly from new moms so they aren't as overwhelmed. The experienced breeder females, they do just fine. If they lose a runt or two I don't worry about that as I figure it's nature's way to weed out the less hardy offspring.

As far as I know an unbred female rat does not lactate.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by frankykeno

Omg too funny and so true! As far as the nursing question, I've had a few deal with litters up to 18 and they seem fine and will split the litter as Monica mentioned. I do tend to plan to have more than one litter at a time and have fostered off some but mostly from new moms so they aren't as overwhelmed. The experienced breeder females, they do just fine. If they lose a runt or two I don't worry about that as I figure it's nature's way to weed out the less hardy offspring.

As far as I know an unbred female rat does not lactate.

---

I don't mind losing one or two when I have 14 more laying around from the same litter:)

With me, no matter how many hundred's I've seen birthed here, I hate to lose even one. :( I know it's expected but dang I hate dead baby rats, seems such a waste really.

Jo, Monica and I usually will feed off a runt or poor looking baby as a second meal or a mid-week meal to some of our snakes, rather than wasting it. Also, if we find dead babies, as long as they haven't been dead too long, I put them on some heat tape to warm them up and feed them off of tongs. We try to waste as little as possible. Just some tips for others if they wanted it.

Quote:

---

Jo, Monica and I usually will feed off a runt or poor looking baby as a second meal or a mid-week meal to some of our snakes, rather than wasting it. Also, if we find dead babies, as long as they haven't been dead too long, I put them on some heat tape to warm them up and feed them off of tongs. We try to waste as little as possible. Just some tips for others if they wanted it.

---

Yaeh, I do that too. Waste not, want not, whatever that means. :rockon: