Dear all,

I've had my rats and mice colonies for 6 months now. Both rats and mices were all PEW's that I got from another local breeder and some mices from reptile shops which were intended for feeders. In the beginning, there were all kinds of problems with them: mice dying from megacollon, rats and mice eating pinks and letting pinks die... I thought one of the problem may be they are not that healthy to start with. So I found another shop that carries black, brown, and "cow" mice and mix them with the PEW, 2 out of 5 new colonies are producing now, whereas my old all PEW colonies are still getting nothing.

But I read that PEW's are specially bred for producing more pinks and easy breeders. How come I'm experiencing the opposit??

As for the 2 PEW rats colonies, before I moved them into the rack, they were in 2 big boxes and had 3-4 litters. But they ate them all. So I moved each mom into her own tub in the rack and move the 2 males around to try to breed them. Since I moved them 2 and 1/2 months ago, ONLY ONE MOM gave birth to 5 pinks, on the 31st day after the move, one died and she raised up the other 4. The others wouldn't breed, could that be because:

1. They don't like being alone?
2. The tubs are only 6 inches tall, would that be too short for the male to be comfortably mount the female?


What are your experience with PEW rats? I cannot get other rats here. So I'm thinking should I move them back to the tall boxes? And should I get other breeders to try? I can get new young rats to breed, but the shop need me to buy at least 20, so I want to make sure before I go ahead.

Thanks very much for any input.