Can I put a female rat in with a group of four male rats to breed her?

[cchardwick]

I have a cage of four male rats and three female rats. I'm thinking of trying to breed just one female to start so was thinking of putting one of the females in with the males for a week or so then moving her back to the female cage to have her babies. Do you see any problems with that? Is four males too many? They are young rats, just barely reaching breeding size, about 250 grams for the females. Don't really want to separate them into another cage if I don't have to. I was actually thinking of rotating my females into the male cage a couple weeks apart and then moving them back into the female cage, then moving them to their own separate cage for birthing and raising young. Thoughts?

[Caspian]

You stand a serious risk of your males fighting, and ending up badly injured by it, possibly even injuring the female. Far better to put the female, and the male you want to breed her with, in a different cage together. If you have the cage for them to birth in, just use that. After the week, put the female back with the females, and the male back with the males, until the female is close to term and ready to be isolated.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

Nope, males will leave peacefully if together since a young age and if the are never introduced to females.

Once they are introduced to females males should never be house together again, they will fight, castrate one another and eventually kill each other.

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[Caspian]

Nope, males will leave peacefully if together since a young age and if the are never introduced to females.

Once they are introduced to females males should never be house together again, they will fight, castrate one another and eventually kill each other.

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I hadn't heard of that, but it's good to know. Guess the boys don't get to have their communal boy cage anymore! Just because I haven't had it happen before, doesn't mean that it won't - so better safe than sorry. My boys are pets.

[cchardwick]

OK, I'm really new at breeding these rats... I've actually read that it's not good to keep multiple females together with young as they will fight over the babies and steal them away from each other, is that true? How about pairing up the males and females into two groups, one with a male / female pair and the other with one male and two females? I'd be willing to get rid of extra males... Can you keep the babies in with one male and two females in the same cage?

Also, can I keep the babies in with a male / female pair? I really only want two 40 gallon tanks with rats if possible since my other tanks are full of mice and ASF, what is the best setup? I'm thinking maybe one male / female pair per tank and keep the babies in with the male / female until I feed them off? Just don't want any fighting or baby killing going on, I have a tough enough time with my mice LOL.

Would I have a problem with putting just one of my males in my tank with three females until they are all bred and then put the male back in with the male tank? Sounds like maybe three females having babies at the same time may be an issue?

I guess the last option would be to have just one male and one female in separate tanks, put them together for a couple weeks and then separate for her to have her babies. Only I've heard that a single rat can get lonely, like a lone male in a tank by himself...?

[Caspian]

Personally, I isolate a female in the last week of pregnancy in a cage by herself, with nesting material. I don't put her and the pups with any other rat again until the pups are about two weeks old. I keep my females in groups of three, take one out to keep with a male for a week, put her back in, then take her out when she's about to give birth and put her in a different cage. I also keep my rats in tubs, rather than tanks - I do have a tank, and I plan on phasing it out to replace all the tubs and tank with a rat rack, as soon as I get one built. I made the mistake of breeding all my females at once, when I started... now I'm doing one at a time, with a six week break between weaning a litter and being bred again for each female, so they can recover and fatten up some before the next litter.

Unfortunately, it looks like I'm going to have to go back to breeding mice. Ugh. I do not like breeding mice. They stink MUCH worse than rats do.

[cchardwick]

Personally, I isolate a female in the last week of pregnancy in a cage by herself, with nesting material. I don't put her and the pups with any other rat again until the pups are about two weeks old. I keep my females in groups of three, take one out to keep with a male for a week, put her back in, then take her out when she's about to give birth and put her in a different cage. I also keep my rats in tubs, rather than tanks - I do have a tank, and I plan on phasing it out to replace all the tubs and tank with a rat rack, as soon as I get one built. I made the mistake of breeding all my females at once, when I started... now I'm doing one at a time, with a six week break between weaning a litter and being bred again for each female, so they can recover and fatten up some before the next litter.

Unfortunately, it looks like I'm going to have to go back to breeding mice. Ugh. I do not like breeding mice. They stink MUCH worse than rats do.

Why are you going back to breeding mice? I found that only the male mice really stink, the females don't smell hardly at all. I like the idea of keeping only one male mouse and moving it around tub to tub, keeps the smell down to almost nothing. I bought a box of seven adult male mice from the pet store to feed my ball pythons, the stink was so bad in my truck that I had to pull over and put the box back in the bed of my truck. WOW

The only reason I have seven rats is because when I bought them at the pet store they were too young for us to sex them, so I figured with seven I'd for sure get some males and some females. Now that I know what sex they are I'm just trying to figure out my breeding plan. I really don't need that many rats since I have mice and ASFs in the mix, I could even get away with just one or two pairs. Although the pet store said they would buy my extra rats, maybe I can trade them for some bedding or something too.

Here's another idea: How about three female rats in separate tanks and one male, I could keep the male with each female for three weeks (or 2.5 weeks) and move him to the next female right before she gives birth. If there were extra young they should be weaned by the time he goes back to the first cage. I could do the same with my mice, except with my mice I could run three females per cage. Not sure I need four male rats, seems like a waste of food.

[Caspian]

I need to start breeding mice again, because my female Super Pastel abruptly decided that she hates rats, and only wants mice. She's a brat. She won't touch frozen-thawed, actually hides her head if I try to offer her one - sniffs, gets interested, gets up to it and whips her head around to cram it under a coil as soon as she realizes it's not alive. I think she has a phobia of zombies or something. Too much TV as a hatchling. So... if mice is what she wants to eat, mice is what she gets, and she doesn't seem to care that she's eating them one little bite at a time. The only pet store near here does not have very healthy mice. The last batch I bought, one died before I even got them home. So it's breed my own.

Usually, with the mice I've raised in the past, I just have three females and one male in each colony. They stay together constantly, have one larger hide for all the mice, and I haven't had any trouble. If I put more than one hide in, they each try to have their litter in a different hide, then spend the next week frantically stealing each others pups - so one hide, and everyone piles in to nurse. The boy invariably gets babysitting duty, while all the females pile up at the other end of the cage to sleep.

With rats, I've kept my three males in one cage, and my females three to a cage. Take one out, put her with one of the boys for a week, put him back with the other two males and her with her other two cage mates, then when she's about to pop I put her by herself until the pups are two weeks old. I've yet to have a problem with the males fighting, so long as there wasn't a female in the cage with them, but I also hadn't heard of that risk before - and just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean it won't happen. Rats are social animals. They do get depressed if they are alone, so I tend to avoid keeping them alone. With the risk of males fighting, I may have to start keeping the males by themselves when they aren't with a female. I rotate males, not just to give them a rest between breedings - which I'm sure they could do without - but also for some diversity in the bloodlines. Each of my males is from a different source, or offspring of pregnant rats purchased from a different source.

Disclaimer: I'm not an expert. I don't, and won't claim to be. This is just my personal experience.

[stickyalvinroll]

I suggest you feed of 3 of the male rat and leave one male in with 3 of the females.

[Marrissa]

I house my males together when they are not currently breeding. I do not tolerate fights. I move all my rats around to whichever bin/tub I please with no introductions and they will behave. If they can't cull them.

For mice I do 3-4 females per tub with one male. If I find I'm not getting babies or not many anymore I feed off the male and replace. I also have the tubs setup so the top ones are the oldest and young ones go to the last unoccupied tub down the rack. This way I feed off the old ones and replace with younger ones as they get older.

I have my personal rats that I breed for improvement and another hobby (dalmatian line, marble line, silver mane line, and burmese line). Those I breed as I need new litters to replace parents/improve. Then I have a rack solely for feeders only. Still holding back females and growing them up. But it's a 7 tub rack. A male will be rotated through the levels every (from what I remember of my plan) 16 days which gives them 3 1/2 months from being bred to being bred again. So they get three weeks gestation and then the month to raise litters (if they don't get fed off already, and then another month of downtime. Plan is three females per tub for 21 breeding females. I'll have a bunch extra to sell off to local people and have litters every week and a half or so. Not all the females always take at once so they should be a bit staggered.