Two Female Rats

[Jay_Bunny]

I'm not going to breed rats on a larger scale until my hubby and I have our own house. For now, I have two females and will get a male as soon as they are old/big enough to breed. So my question is this. One female is a blue berk. I am unsure of her age, but I would guesstimate her to be around 3 months old. She weighs 280g. The other female is much younger, maybe only 2 months old. I know I should wait another month for the other female to mature some more before breeding, but if I get a male when she is ready, and I move her to his tub, wait a few weeks and then move her back, will she be ok to raise the litter with the younger female in the tub with her?

[BigLu]

just put a male wit big ol nuts in with them and in 30 days you will see something

[Jay_Bunny]

Um, I can't put a male in with the younger female until she's ready to breed so I'm going to have to move the older female to the male's tub for breeding and then move her back. I'm just wondering if she will be ok raising her babies with the younger female in the tub with her and then when the younger female is old enough, I'm going to alternate them.

[SlitherSister]

be careful with alternating only 2 females as back to back breedings put a huge strain on their system

They would eventually give out due to over breeding but before such you will see an overall decline in the health & size of the litter

[Jay_Bunny]

Oh no I wouldn't alternate right away. I never breed rats back to back. The last time I bred rats I gave each mom several weeks off (3). Actually I'm even going to experiment with moving mice so that they can have time off from breeding as well. I don't like over breeding animals.

Didge is definitely putting some weight on her. I'm going to start looking for a male rat to start raising up, give her another month and then breed her.