Help getting surrogate mother to accept babies!

[mischevious21]

I have a female Siamese rat who gave birth this morning to 15 wiggley babies, and for the first couple hours was feeding and caring for them fine.. Then she just started massacuring them. I've never had this happen before, but I removed her immediately and checked over the remaining babies and disposed of the ones I was too late for.. I have 11 babies remaining, but one was injured so we will see what happens.
I have another female who had given birth to a litter close to 4 weeks ago, and was a excellent mother. I rubbed the pups with a couple of her babies, and introduced her to them. I did this about an hour ago and she still hasn't paid them any attention... She is my only hope, since I have no other way of getting another lactating female and although I have today and tomorrow off, after that I'm back to work and there's no way for me to feed them every 2-3 at work. It's just not an option. Is there anything else I can do to encourage her to accept them? I feel bad even getting her to, since it was just yesterday I just took her babies from her, but I know she is still full of milk and again my only option.. I appreciate any advice, thank you.

[mischevious21]

Just an update, though advice is appreciated. She did start trying to care for the babies, but it was too late for most and still not looking good for the 5 remaining. She has very little milk, and it doesnt have all of the nutrients they need as newborns. Ive been giving them pedialyte every few hours to help them stay hydrated.. But Im not sure if it will be enough. We will see..

[Annarose15]

Unfortunately, I don't have any advice to offer, but good luck with the remaining babies.

[satomi325]

So are the pups with the mother or the foster?
With the foster right? Where are her own pups? If they are old enough, I would remove them so she can concentrate on the new babies.

It would be a lot easier if you had another litter around the same age to integrate. You would just have to put them under the other litter and thats it.


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