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?