Housing female rats together

[Skittles46]

Ok, so due to some minor space constraints we were housing momma rats together in 2's in 20 gal totes.
We just recently separated off some of the more pregnant looking ones, and this afternoon (thought they dropped mostly at night? LOL) I have 8-10 (hard to get a good count) pinkies from one of my albino gals.
However, the other female is now huddled in the opposite corner of the tote, and everytime she comes near to the new momma she gets bit, just fur from what I can see, but definitely gets driven away.

I do have the room for now to separate them, should I? and just leave the momma with her pinks?

[Hathor]

I will state up front that I don't have a ton of experience with this because I just started breeding rats myself, but I had a similar situation recently. I had two female rats together and one gave birth to 9 babies. Everytime the one that didn't give birth would come near mom, she would bite her. This went on for a few days and finally there seemed to be a truce. (I think the mom just wanted to make sure the other one wasn't going to hurt her babies.) Now, a week later, the one who is still pregnant is helping take care of some of the babies, and mom seems to be fine with this. I haven't seen anymore biting either. All the babies are doing well, too. None of them have died/been eaten, etc. I'm waiting to see what will happen when the second female gives birth. So, I think you could probably wait it out, and it should be ok, but maybe someone with more experience will have a different opinion.

[littleindiangirl]

If it turns into real aggression and baby stealing I would pull the other female. Obviously she is not happy that another female is around, and that is stressing her out. If you could, I would pull the other pregnant one and put her back into another common tub, even if it were a male until she births. Hopefully you have some space cleared up by then.

but if you plan on communal nesting, try your hand and decide if you like it or not.

I personally dont think communal nesting is better than single.