Rat breeding questions!! Help!

[Sabercatz23]

thanks for all the comments guys! sorry for the caps haha

[satomi325]

I wait till the females get up in size. So ~200-300 grams.
I put the same size male as the female or larger.

[snakesRkewl]

Sunflowers are pure grabage, no nutrients, and not something they need or can use that is healthy.
You want to fatten a rodent up, try yoghurt, mashed potatoes, pastas, etc.
Oily seeds are great for treats only

I've found some of the best groups I've put together were raised together from weanling size. They fight less and they get along better than groups put together when they are older.

[Andrew21]

Sunflowers are pure grabage, no nutrients, and not something they need or can use that is healthy.

Well dadgum. I was completely wrong. Lol Is it bad to have sunflower seeds as a decent sized part of a mix? I'm trying to make up my mixture for my pet rats, and I can get sunflower seeds for free. I don't want to feed them just dog food and pig pellets.

[RobNJ]

Is it bad to have sunflower seeds as a decent sized part of a mix?

Yes, they shouldn't be a regular part of their diet, because, like people, rats generally prefer junk food. So you'll end up feeding them your mixture, and they'll eat the seeds first, leaving behind the other food. And then it would only be natural for you to think that because they like the seeds so much, that they should get more. And then you'll end up with a bunch of fat, greasy rats with the libido of a rock....small litters, crushing babies because they're too lazy to actually nurse, so they just lay all their weight on them.

[toyota89]

I mix 25lbs of each dog & mazuri & about 10lbs of seeds. That's a mix of 60lbs of food. My rats like the mix.

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[PatriotPythons]

1. Don't give rats sunflower seeds. Rodent block and fresh clean water is all that is necessary for the production of rodents and should be all that they eat and drink.

2. I don't breed females until they are 16 weeks old. I usually end up losing one litter's worth of production over the lifetime of the female by waiting to breed them as opposed to people that breed them earlier, but the long term results offer more production.

3. I have a long and complicated selection process for choosing replacement females, but needless to say I choose the largest females at 16 weeks old. I have no idea what they weigh, but if the ones I choose are bigger than their littermates then that is good enough for me.

4. I would advise against putting breeding groups together at weaning size. I wean around 25-26 days old for the most part. Rats that are introduced at that age will certainly be quite social with one another and probably never fight, but they will breed at much too young of an age to be healthy for the female. It will cut into your bottom line over the breeding life of the rat. She can be stunted, her litters can be smaller, and the pups that she weans can be smaller.

In review, I wait until they are 16 weeks old. I choose the largest females at that point if she meets my other criteria.

Males are put into the gene pool at 16 weeks old as well. They are much larger than the females that they are going in with and they usually mate successfully within days of being introduced.

[MrLang]

I think Jerry might just be talking about introducing all the females to each other at weanling size and adding the male when they're up to size?

[bokuza]

I prefer to wait till 14 weeks for females. Males start whenever they feel like it haha. Like many others I do not weigh but I do make sure the female is dense feeling with a strong muscle mass.

Off topic: While fat does have a roll in pregnancy I feel that protein should not be ignored. A female with a lot of fat in her diet may be able to have one large litter well but her recoup time will be longer than a rat given the proper protein. Chicken (skinless white breast) is a small special treat for our girls that pop out 15+ back to back. We get chicken and beef bones from a butcher and the rats chainsaw right through them. Bones are not fed to rats that are not in breeding.