big litter .. small litter

[steve_r34]

Well this is happening on repeat in my house i keep my females 2 to a tub and throw a male in there to breed them .. now the past 3 times I have had 1 girl lay 10+ and the other lay 5 or less .. now 2 out of the 3 where 1st time moms and the the other this way her second time dropping but the 1st litter she dropped was like 13 or 14 but she abandoned the litter and they all died within days that was her 1st litter .. she m othered all the 2nd litter but was only 5 .. so can anyone tell me y the litters are so different?

I got 4 breedi g right now 2 should drop within the next week or so .. so ill let u know the numbers of them as well and these are all 1st time mom's as well

[Stewart_Reptiles]

1 girl lay 10+ and the other lay 5 or less

You have rats that lay

The differences in litter size can be various.

Female can produce more or less depending on temps (high and low temps translate as smaller litter) does not mean that all the females are affected the same way.

Some first time mom may have huge litters while some do not, they can also be bad mother the first time around....not all females are the same.

Back to back breeding (female becoming pregnant while nursing) take it's toll and usually affect litter size as well etc

To build a strong colony that produces well you need to hold back females from large litters, I only hold back females from 14 and up litters.

If when you identify a female that is a bad mother, or his unable to nurse all of her babies or produces small litters, you need to start considering retiring her after her second or third litter.

[kc261]

The food you are feeding can affect litter size too. Higher quality food will result in bigger healthier litters.

I think first time moms that are a little on the small/young side for breeding are likely to produce a small litter for their first litter, although I haven't actually experimented to see how true that is.

I wouldn't worry too much about how your first females are doing with their first litters. Just keep back girls from the best mothers, and in a few generations you will see a noticeable improvement.

[steve_r34]

All my girls came from a litter of 16 I believe except the 2nd time mom so 4 of 6 I was talking about did and 2 out of the 4 on there 1st litters put up 14 and 12 and then the other 2 put up 5 and 4 .. the 4 females that r breeding now came from another one no my females that had a big litter and her pups where huge when they came I swear I was amazed how big they were and they were walki ng in like less then 2 weeks .. the room is around 65-70 depending on how cold it is outside and I feed them doggie bag .. witch I heard was ok.. I was thinking of switching to mazri .. I do not back to back my girls at least get close to 3 months off