Well folks, went against my usual rule of thumb about buying obviously pregnant female breeder rats from my local pet store....here's the result and I am kicking myself.

I was in our fav pet store the other week, checking out a tank of huge male rats with an eye for BCI feeding potential. Well a big husky marked one stood up and to my surprise not only doesn't it have the standard male equipment but it's hugely pregnant! Called an employee over and decided to purchase the female against my better judgement. Hey I like a bargain and I'm thinking...she's ready to drop...I get an almost free litter and get the poor thing out of the male cage since somebody obviously messed up here (this pet store is usually very good at sexing and doesn't leave adult rats of opposite sex together).

What a mess! The poor female did in fact deliver 2 days later....nearly bleed out on me, was so stressed and sick she couldn't care for her litter.....out of 12 born only 9 survived. I had to quickly switch some other nursing females around to free up my albino female, Snowball, whose an experienced mother plus has fostered pinks for me before with no problems.

Snow has taken on the litter (which were pretty puny at birth) and has culled out 3 more...so I'm down to 6 pinks. The original female has survived but I was shocked at how thin she was once she dropped the litter and I'm not sure if the bad delivery combined with stress will still kill her.

So moral of the story for me....follow my usual procedures, stick with my instincts about buying healthy unbred females and building them up a bit prior to breeding (or just raise my own future breeders)....healthier females make for healthier litters and that's just smarter for me financially plus way less stress and work for me. I k now they are "only" rats but I hate to lose any of them needlessly. Up until now I've only lost 1 pink out of 78 born so it's been a frustrating experience and a bit of a waste of resources.


~~Jo~~