I just can't believe my favorite rat died. It had only been 4 hours since I was playing with her and the room was fine. I went in to check at 10:30 and turn off the light and the room was at 81 degrees. I lost 3 pregnant mice, 1 male mouse, and the mother rat. The 11 babies are only about 5 days old! All of them are still alive, but they were all over the place in the 20 gallon tank. Most of them had crawled the entire length of the tank to lay by her.

I put them in with my other litter of 11 and I made an emergency run to Wal-mart for kitten formula. Unfortunately they didn't seem very responsive to it. The foster mother was attempting to nurse all 22! Her litter is only about 3 days old. Do you think she will be able to nurse all of them?

I am really upset because I was planning on keeping most of the orphaned litter as breeders. They have great markings and their mother had such a good temperament. I really hope they make it.