Quote Originally Posted by Chuckels View Post
Just because you can't handle your rats doesn't really mean they'll be bad breeders. Also, even a mother rat that eats her first 1-2 litters isn't necessarily a bad breeder. It can take up to their third litter before they settle down and produce good sized and healthy litters. Now if a mother over 6-9 months old is producing litters and eating them, that qualifies to ME as a bad breeder and will be replaced. The reason I said not to 'stress' them is because when a litter is first born, the mothers maternal instinct are at is peak compared to a litter that is a week old. I choose not to touch them for a few days because of the 7 stitches I received when I first started out. The way anyone handles their breeders is completely up to them, but I don't handle mine everyday, and I still can pick any of them up and be fine. It's all about the person and how they feel with their rats, I love my rats, but I also understand theyre animals, and unless there's a secret language that I don't know, we can never FULLY understand them. We can gain experience, but were not rats and will never know exactly what they want at the current time! :-)
Trey
It's like you said, every one can do what they want... But, in my opinion, if a rat is still eating her young on the second litter, toss her and replace. it's just a waste of space, food and time to keep trying.
And, no, just because you can't handle them, doesn't make them bad breeders. Most large scale breeders don't handle their rats. I was just stating, that unless you handle them and get them used to be handled, they will stress easier when you mess with their young. My personal way of doing it, handle them often, and their young, I find works great. They are used to me going through the cage, pulling pups, cleaning, or whatever.
If you are planning on raising rodents for any length of time, and you don't like getting bit, then this is the best way. Why waste your time trying to raise pups out of a nasty or bad producing mother, when you don't have to? Especially when you have replacements already on hand? Just feed off the bad apples...
Not trying to step on your toes, just trying to give my advice. I've been doing this for a long time, with great success in the way I do it.