I lost my first litter of rat pups. The black hooded female had 9, but they died within a day I'm not sure if it was because she was young and it was her first litter. That's my only guess. She was 5-6 months old.

Mercedes, my fawn hooded rat had 13, she ate the one They are 5 days old, I have it on Excel so I can keep track of everything!



Here's mom, she didn't mind us playing with her babies! She just wanted scratched.



I'm dissapointed in the quality of the hooded markings. Oh well I suppose, I'm planning to freeze most of them anyway, I just wanted to see what the color/markings would be like. Does anyone know why some of them are lighter/darker shades of black? I'm assuming they will all turn out to be black or aguoti hooded. My little sister was there helping me and she wants me to keep a couple of the lighter ones and one good hooded alive So Mercedes will most likely be left with 3 babies after tonight.