My rat gave birth unexpectedly...

we bought a rat a long time ago to try and breed with a male, well two months later nothing happened so we got ride of him. We kept the female cause I liked her so we didn't feed her as food. Than 4 days ago she gave birth unexpectly. She never showed signs of being pregnant and now she has 14 babies. Are the babies the same as mice when they grow up? I have bread mice for awhile and I know alot about them but when it comes to rats I really don't have a clue. I know today I think the babies are 5 days old Am I able to change her bedding, she lets me touch them sometimes and trust me, but her cage is getting pretty rankie and I want to known when I am able to change the bedding. I normaly change my mice bedding 2 weeks after birth. And than does she need any thing special I am so clueless on what to do for her. :weirdface

Just go thru the same motions as you would with a mouse. Just keep a little bit of bedding in with the babies so that Momma can find them. (I do that, which may or may not be necessary, but just a habit of mine)

Thanks that will help. She gave birth to a big litter is that normal? she has 14 babies. when are you suppose to wean the pups? I wean my mice at 3 weeks are rats the same? :confused:

I wean them when they are eating solid food on their own, eyes open. I don't actually pay attention to the time line, I just take them out when I see it :)

Mice and rats have about the same time line. I usually wean my mice at 3 weeks and my rats at 3.5... sometimes earlier or later depending on how healthy the litter is.

Actually, I think rats are a lot more forgiving about who handles their babies. There have been rat cages where I've changed the bedding the same day the mom gave birth and it never affected how mom cared for her babies. Can't always say the same thing for mice.

14 is not an especially large litter, they can feed 12 at a time, they'll take turns. I usually just leave them in with Mom until they're about 4-5 weeks.

That's true rats to tend to be friendlier and therefore more forgiving when it comes to their litters.

It depends on how much you handle your rodents though. I have some mice that I can handle while giving birth, and I've had some rats that I need to give 3-4 days before I even add food to there hoppers. But all in all rats are better mothers.

thanks for the help, i changed her cage the other day and she seemed fine with it. i am hopeing though our bp will eat them or really they are no use to us.

well when they get your snakes size kill them and freeze them as back up food. we have lots of animals that eat pinky rats so they are either frozen or fed off when tiny. My corns eat mice, rats,asf.

My bp doesn't like to eat frozen, he is about 2 ft right now and the rats are just about his size. He can eat about a medium size rat so the babies are about the size of a small mouse. but i think he will be able to handle them. but i just wasn't expecting the babies... it was a big shock...:P

Well... When you put a boy and a girl together... babies are generally the end result. I think we went over that in health class, probably 5th grade or earlier?

Why did you breed the rat if your snake won't eat frozen? Those rats will quickly outgrow your snake by the time they're about 7-8 weeks old(your snake definitely doesn't need a medium/large rat, they're fine on weaned or smalls).

Might want to just stick with getting one prey item a week from the store... Less wasteful.

My snake has eatten a couple medium rats and he has been fine on them. he doesn't like the pinkies he won't touch them. he won't eat frozzen either. I found someone localy that wants some rats as well so we have the situation figured out.

Still, why did you breed?

We tried to breed them at first and then it turned out the male was sterial so we sold them male. than 2 months later our female started showing signs that she was pregnante. but its ok thought no need to get all deffensive about it i just had some questions, out python eats them just fine so problem solved!

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Originally Posted by Mice"R"US

We tried to breed them at first and then it turned out the male was sterial so we sold them male. than 2 months later our female started showing signs that she was pregnante. but its ok thought no need to get all deffensive about it i just had some questions, out python eats them just fine so problem solved!

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We know why you think you ended up with babies. I'm just wondering why you tried to breed at all if you didn't think your snake would eat them?
Not feeling deffensive :P I'm mostly just curious. If you tell me you were curious about the cycle of life I'd take it. lol

We tried breeding them at first because he was ready to switch to rats. He was eatting about 4 mice a week so we tried breeding rats for awhile and it never worked so we went back to mice and he still is eatting alot of mice per a week. So we are trying to switch him to rats and get ride of our mice.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mice"R"US

We tried breeding them at first because he was ready to switch to rats. He was eatting about 4 mice a week so we tried breeding rats for awhile and it never worked so we went back to mice and he still is eatting alot of mice per a week. So we are trying to switch him to rats and get ride of our mice.

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He may be ready to switch to rats but if he won't eat f/t and isn't big enough for a full grown rat yet, I'd say feed him multiple mice instead of switching. I mean what are you gonna do with the ones the get to big for him?