That is really helpful, thank you. I think I'd like to try doing the communal thing because right now the way it's setup, I have two females in each of my smaller tubs, then I rotate a male through, removing him after a female gives birth. But sometimes only one female will go and then I'm stuck waiting for the babies to get weaned before I get a male back in. So maybe it would be better to do 3 females per tub and then just keep one male in there all the time, removing the mother and babies instead and putting them in the larger grow out tubs. I'm sure it would increase my production. The only question I have about doing it that way is how much difference in age is ok for the different litters that go into the communal nursing tub? I've read that sometimes the older pups will kill the new borns? That's the only issue I can see with doing it this way.