Rat rack breeding question?

[Billy305]

I tried keeping multiple moms in the same tub as they give birth. You'll lose half the babies from them 'baby hoarding' and end up with as many as if you had 1 mom alone - and you'll have to clean out dead pinkies daily. Not pleasant.

Find a way to keep the moms alone during birth and until the babies grow fur.

With 6 tubs, I'd keep 3 females per tub in 4 tubs and rotate a male every 3 weeks between them. As the moms get ready to give birth separate them 1 in the original tub and 1 in each of the 2 empty tubs. By the time the next tub has hit 3 weeks you can put the moms with all the babies back in the original tub. This gives you room to take the next tub and split it - 1 mom in the original tub and 2 in the empty 2. After 3 weeks put them all back etc.

4 tubs - 3 females each. 1 male - 3 weeks per tub. As you move the male, split the 3 females from the previous tub and put the 3 separate females back in their own original tub.

You're welcome

I've not had problems with any dead rats or babies keeping 2 moms together like you described, even with different litter ages in the same tub. The only exception to this is when I introduced 2 separate moms with litters in to the same tub AFTER they were born. The moms killed each others babies. Their next litter and so forth were fine together.

I think this may be them having time to get used to each other before the babies arrive. I've bred hundreds, maybe thousands of babies and this was the only time I've had a pinky/weanling die and each tub has 2 moms