Rat litter pics

This is my first rat litter so i'm kinda excited and i'm taking a few pics. It's pretty cool to watch these little buggers grow up. Today they just opened their eyes and started roaming around. I can see how mom is already getting tired of them following her around everywhere now. I started out with 7 and now i'm down to 3. I'm getting the feeling that next week will probably be the last week or maybe 2 that I can use them as food.

As far as telling if they are male or female this early the ones with the 6-8 dots or so on the bottom are females right? I assume those are the nipples.


4 days after birth:

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

About 9 days after birth:

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

14 days after birth (today):

http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o...DSC00625-1.jpg

http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o...8/DSC00627.jpg

they are soooo cute!!

I have ones just like that!!! About 50 of them! In my freezer.:P Cute babies. Its hard to feed them off when there that cute!

that was the innitial idea with our females but the more i see cute adorable babys i dont knwo that i can do it.. my hearts too big! i woudl sooner give them to a petstore then feed em off

Believe me after you've raised a few hundred of them, the "oh how cute" wears off. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

Believe me after you've raised a few hundred of them, the "oh how cute" wears off. :)

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LOL - I agree! They are cute, but not too cute to feed off.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

Believe me after you've raised a few hundred of them, the "oh how cute" wears off. :)

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Right-on!
But they are still prety cute, for maybe a day after their eyes open. Then they turn into hopping grasshopper-like boogers.. time to feed off!

Ive been raising rats now for a little while - and i still think they are really really cute.

The trick is : grab, close your eyes, open tub, proceed to throw in tub, then open your eyes and pretend nothing happened. The faster the better, and less thinking the better. not to hard for me :rolleyes:

no way, i couldnt do it.. those little blk/wht babys are so cute, innocent, baby face looking.. nope couldnt. my luck i would want to keep the ones i raised anyway lol

I dunno, I think they are cute but I still like watching the snake eat too. I'll probably end up keeping the 2 females, one of those cinamon ones and one of the black ones.

How long does it take for them to be OK to breed?

Males will breed as early as 5 or 5 weeks of age. Females should be about 250 grams which is generally around 4 or 5 months of age. Big healthy young females = easy birthing, lots of milk and a very nice litter of feeders.

Btw, it's not so hard to feed them off as they develop into pups. By then their own mother is so sick of them they'll try to hop out of the tub, stuff their belly against the glass trying to keep the "teat leeches" off them and heck, I had a female rat drop her pup in my hand...I think she was giving me the hint LOL

they are so cute.... i wanted a pet rat... and will get one one day.. and it wont become snake food either... lol i try not to get to close to my snakes food... lol but my snakes come 1st and they have to eat

i grew attached to a feeder that was refused.. he hung around till the next week, and I was upset to see him go, but watching the snake do his thing, and quickly, totally threw aside any sad feelings I had about the rat. Snakes rule \m/

AWWWW!! I want rats now!! Their adorable!!

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Originally Posted by AshleyB

no way, i couldnt do it.. those little blk/wht babys are so cute, innocent, baby face looking.. nope couldnt. my luck i would want to keep the ones i raised anyway lol

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Yep, this is exactly why I feed mice instead of rats! Mice aren't cute once they get big enough to feed off, they are just stinky bitey annoying things. :D