Rat litter question

My female rat had a first litter of 7 on wednesday. I'm just now starting to see some of the markings for where the fur is going to be.

About how often should the mother be nursing the babies?

Also i've noticed sometimes on her way to food or something else she just kinda steps on the babies and they squeal a little bit. Is this normal?

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Originally Posted by Snikt228

My female rat had a first litter of 7 on wednesday. I'm just now starting to see some of the markings for where the fur is going to be.

About how often should the mother be nursing the babies?

Also i've noticed sometimes on her way to food or something else she just kinda steps on the babies and they squeal a little bit. Is this normal?

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Yea wait till shes feeding and she drags them around still attached to the tit cause you came in the room

I just had a litter of 13 on thursday morning (first rat litter ever for me). As soon as they start squeeking it seems like she runs to them and starts feeding them...

My rats feed their babies almost all the time. Some mothers stay on their babies, very rarely leaving them, some will leave them to eat or take a quick nap (but cover them up to keep them warm and hide them), and they all step on them. I hear squeeking most when the babies are jostling for a teat.

As long as they are growing well and are nice, chubbo rat babies momma rat is doing her job. All female rats do it somewhat differently. Some are basically attached to their babies and some are less attentive and only return to the nest to nurse but don't stay on the nest constantly. Her stepping on them won't bother them, they squeek a bit but the stimulation is good for them, they need to exercise those little lungs anyways to keep them healthy.

Just provide her with constant access to her water bottle, lots of food and she'll make milk for the growing horde of teat leeches. :)

Once their eyes are open and they start following her to the food source make sure you keep upping the food available as they'll both try her food and water bottle, but will continue to nurse off her until they are removed at weaning age.

What's the best way to clean with a litter? I cleaned the tank on Thursday and I was a little worried that she wouldn't go back to nursing since the smell changed or something.

I moved the mom out first and then took the litter and put it somewhere else until I was done. Then put it back similar to what it was and dropped her in.

Is this the proper way?

Yep that's what I do every week. I put the momma rat in one secure container, place her litter in another. Gives me a chance to check every baby rat in the colony for any problems. Then babies go back in (I usually make a bit of a depression for the nest), then momma rat. She may settle right in, or move the babies to her preferred area but generally there's no problems. Do watch however, some female rats, even gentle ones, can be VERY nippy when on a nest of babies. Rat bites are no fun and they always seem to nail you right on the darn knuckle. If you get nailed, wash with hot soapy water and apply topical triple anti-biotic. Rat bites can go nasty on you.

Last question, I promise.

Does the mom notice or care that babies are missing? I'm going to be pulling 2 or 3 a week and feeding them off. Does this cause any issues?

Oh heck ask all the questions you want, that's never a problem around here! :)

I can't say that it bothers my female rats to have a few pulled each week for feeding off purposes. I suppose they might look for a few moments but generally they are so busy caring for the remaining litter it never seems to be an issue with my females. By the time they hit the busy pup stage and are following mom around constantly bugging her to nurse and pushing her out of the way to get to her water bottle and food bowl...I think the females are pretty much sick of them anyways LOL.

Near to weaning time most of my females would happily escape their enclosures just to avoid their offspring. I think by then the "joy of motherhood" has way worn off for a female rat!

Here are the best pics I could get. Hard to get any pics of her sleeping, even if you make the smallest noise they wake up.

Looks like I got a couple of dark hooded ones. What do you think the others are, just plain white?

http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o...8/DSC00609.jpg

http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o...8/DSC00611.jpg

The other babies will probably be about the same color as the mother or a lot of white with some tan.

Just came back from a week trip and it looks like they've upgraded from pinks to pups. Got 5 of these and 2 black hooded. On the downside in my other cage where I had 1 male and 1 female they were both dead, no idea why yet

http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o...8/PIC-0033.jpg

Those are fuzzies not pups. They'll be pups once their eyes open at about 15 days of age. Was someone caring for your rats during your time away? Were the enclosure in direct sunlight?

I figure out what happened. Nobody was caring for them but I know how much food/water they use per day and i've never had any problems going away for 3-4 days. They are in my dark closet, no direct light.

I didn't see at first but it looks like the water bottle is totally destroyed, i've never seen any of my rats even nibble on the bottle but this one had huge pieces missing, so I guess the water probably rushed out and this type doesn't work without a vaccum seal, so even the pieces at the top missing would have ruined it.

I'm going to have to think of a different strategy with the water bottle

You can either go with glass rodent water bottles (a bit pricey) or simply buy some hardware cloth and create a bottle cover for it. If your rats are in tubs you can also simply keep the bottle wired on the outside and just melt a big enough hole for the spigot to feed through. I know one of our members even creates water bottle covers out of soda cans.