Maternity Rack?

[Python Lair]

Do you have one? Yes? No? Do you think it makes a difference?? Let me know your opinion! Thinking about making one, what size or type tubs should I use if make one?? THANKS!

[rperry03]

I keep all 4 of the females together, rotate 2 pregnant, so each set of two get a month or so off. One seems to be dominant but no real fighting. My males are in a separate cage.

[SlitherinSisters]

I give every mom her own tub. Every now and again I run low on space because they all decide to have their babies at the same time and I'll have to throw females in together. I've always had healthier larger litters when they are on their own.

[rperry03]

I give every mom her own tub. Every now and again I run low on space because they all decide to have their babies at the same time and I'll have to throw females in together. I've always had healthier larger litters when they are on their own.

Are they own their own all the time or do you separate when they get prego? Sort of wondering why they are bigger if their together until they are showing?

I might need to get a rack if this is the case.

[snakesRkewl]

We separate our females as they get plump into a momma rack that holds 20qt tubs.
I enjoy them being on their own as much as they enjoy the time alone with their litter.
Whether I get more or healthier babies might be up for dispute but we had really good success using maternity racks.
If I was breeding hundreds of rats it wouldn't be feasible but on a small scale it's quite do-able

[Stewart_Reptiles]

Here females are placed in a maternity rack when they are about to give birth and stay there during 7 to 10 days, than it's communal nursing (usually 2 to 5 females depending on the tub)

With my colony I have seen better results, females do tend to fight over babies and when doing in the first 7 to 10 days it leads more severe injuries/deaths.

I no longer have that issue works for me.

Regardless of what others do you need to find what work for your colony and yourself.

That's my birthing rack

[szynk.reptiles]

no i have one rack for mice one for rats. mice rack is kitty litter bins and when mice get preg they get pulled and put in own tub usually two preg females to tub. preg rats get pulled and one rat to kitty litter tub from mouse rack works great for rats from preg-rat pups are about size of mouse then they go back to rat rack whats left and hasnt been fed off by then

[jasbus]

I used to have maternity racks. I gave up on it, didn't see any difference in numbers, just the amount of time it took me to clean all the extra tubs. I built a 72 tub rack, and absolutely hated it. The design was good enough, just all the extra time cleaning and moving this rat here and there....

Went back to 1.4 rack breeding after a couple of months. Back to being happy again....

[bishop40k]

I have the same rack as Deborah posted (kind of stole her design), I haven't really tried without it, as I was always pulling moms away even back with the ARBreptiles rack designs. Since I switched to a litter pan breeding rack, I always use the "birthing" rack, just because it's there, but in the near future I plan on building a rack akin to jasbus' rat rack and seeing if I notice any difference.

Only thing that I really like about the birthing rack idea is that I tag the front of the tubs when the litter was born so I can keep track of ages of rats and know approx wean times without having to go on size. This is due to what I've noticed that a mom with a larger litter will have smaller babies vs a mom with a smaller litter.

WHEN my moms give birth in the breeding rack (happens more than it should, but oh well), I don't notice any fighting over babies, and last week I actually had 3 moms give birth and put all their pinks in 1 big pile. When I got around to pulling them for the birthing rack, I just split the pile up by the numbers (31 pinks, so 10 to each mom and the largest one got the 1 left over), all were accepted and are currently in "chub" stage.

[reptilegirl07]

Back when I first started breeding, I separated moms into groups of up to 3 per cement tub with their litters.
I had good success.

Now, I don't want the hassle so I'm not separating. I have my first litter since I started breeding again in this house and so far mom gave birth to 15 about a week ago, I have 14 babies all fat and healthy...

My asf's I always kept in SMALL tubs 1.2 and I had surprisingly great success with them and very little if any cannibalism. It seemed as if they liked being in small spaces with their litters. I had back to back litters and great success rate. I was over-run fast.

With my mice, so far, I just bought about 100 mice from different places (about 2 weeks ago).

My first litter was cannibalized. My second litter is 11 and going strong (both not separating the moms). Now I have 2 moms about ready to pop and I have them alone in their own tubs. I'm trying to see if that makes a difference.

I want to avoid mother racks. I'm trying to do this on a large scale, and with all of those extra tubs, that means more time, and more time is more money. =)