Weaning rats - Help??

[SquamishSerpents]

So I tried my hand at breeding ASFs and ultimately decided they were way more work than they were worth, and they really weren't doing anything for saving us money on our snake food, so we switched over to regular rats.

I did NOT expect to have this much production from them!!!!

I was cleaning bins yesterday, and there were poor, starving pinkies (no milk-band) buried way down in the substrate.

The bigger ones were hogging all the milk I guess, and buried the little guys. However I'm not quite sure the bigger ones are ready to be weaned? I have seen a couple of them nibbling at the solids, but they just look SO small. Perhaps they're smaller than usual because there were so many of them at one time? There were 2 litters born within a day of each other, so there were around 20 babies at the same time. Could they just be growing a bit slower than usual because of how many were born at the same time?

I've heard the general rule is "wean as soon as you see them eating." But obviously I can't be sure that every single one has been eating solids.

Also, I'm just getting into the groove of these rats, when we got them, somebody else was selling off ALL their breeding colonies and they all got put into 3 big shipping totes for the drive back home. So they all got mixed up. I would GUESS at least half, if not more of the females are first time moms, which I understand sometimes take a little while to get the hang of nursing.

So I'm hoping they figure it out in a month or so.

While I would LOVE to have a birthing rack, it's just not feasible right now, so they're currently set up in 1.4 colonies. I've heard of many others being successful with this setup, so I'm really hoping it's going to work out for us.

Anyways, just a bit worried/confused about weaning them. I think I will wait another 2 days or so and then pull them?

[wolfy-hound]

I've been weaning any babies that are running around. Not just crawling with the limbs all splayed out, but actually running, sort of when they start looking kind of like mice?

Size does vary from litter to litter, and more babies in a litter does seem to result in smaller babies, and some first litters are small babies(just going from my limited experience with my own rat colony).

One thing I've started doing is moving litters around. If I have a bin with crawlers and newborns, I move one size to a bin that has more babies of that size. So I might remove newborns and put those in with a mom who also has newborns. That way at least all the babies are the same size. Not all rats will take fosters, but most of them haven't had any issue yet. I have one big mom who throws really SMALL litters, but her babies get huge fast, so I foster as many babies onto her as possible, since she has lots of milks and mothers whatever babies I put in with her.

I leave my rats in the 1.4 colonies. Haven't had much reason to not do it this way. I did the same thing, buying a established colony, and the adults all got mixed together so I had to make new groups. They stabalize pretty fast.

[Rhasputin]

I don't recomend weaning 'as soon as you see them eating' or 'as soon as they can run around'. This is too early, and the over-all health of the animal suffers as a result.

If you are breeding feeders then you should have no trouble leaving them in a bit longer, the worst that could happen is that your doe gets pregnant again, and makes you some more food.

But ASFs, rats, and mice should be left with their mothers for between 4 and 6 weeks before being removed.

[snakesRkewl]

I wean at 4 weeks and see no reason to ever leave a litter with a mom longer than that.
12-15 four week old kits can quickly overwhelm a momma rat, they are almost always ready to wean at 3 1/2 weeks old but I prefer to wait until they are a full 4 weeks old.

If I'm raising some hold backs for future breeding I will cull the litter down to 5-6 kits by 2 weeks old and let the momma rat fatten up the babies I want to keep.

[RobNJ]

I wean at 4 weeks. If there are any runts, they get to stay with the mother for a few more days to a week. If one mother ends up nursing a seemingly extraordinary amount of babies, I'll switch some of the babies to another nursing mother. If all nursing mothers look well occupied and there's no benefit to switching babies, I start culling. Any FTT's are culled as soon as I notice them...usually when a nursing mother boots them from the litter 2-3 times.

[satomi325]

I wean at 3-4 weeks depending on the litter and pup. Larger more alert pups that are mostly independent are moved and the smaller weaker ones stay with mom. If I have no room for extra pups, they're given to my ferrets as treats... I would rather save the stronger pups that have a higher chance of survival than the weak runty ones that take space and use mama's milk and may not make it anyway.

I had 2 litters recently that were 2 days apart as well. The older litter is smaller but had significantly larger pups. They were hogging all the milk(the mamas combined nests). I ended up separating the pups back with their respected mothers in maternity bins. At 4-5 weeks old now, there's a huge size difference between the 2 litters. If I had left the younger litter, they probably would have died...

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