When to pull pinks?

[Skittles46]

I had a first time mama drop 8 pinkies about 4 hours ago. I noticed when I was by her tote that she was curled up with the other preg that she shares a tote with and babies were still strewn all over, half or so still attached to placentas she hadn't even touched.

I do have the option to foster them out as I have a couple of good mamas with pinks right now, should I?

[littleindiangirl]

Umm... well that's tough to say. I know it's really late, but how long has she been ignoring them? If you havent already, I would have pull her and put her in a tub alone and see if she understands what's going on then.

Some rats just dont do well in communal nesting, either taking over caring for all of them, or leaving the other rat to do the nursing.

I guess if you have someone around the same stage of new pinks, you could give them to her, but in my small bit of experience, (tried it with one girl with pinks only 4 days older) the other pups were a bit bigger, they pushed the smaller ones away from the teats and I had dead pinks.

But again, you may find that it works well and they survive, looking forward to see what you did.

[Skittles46]

Well, here's an update, and a list of things we tried.

I initially pulled the pinkies and warmed them up some, seperated the mom and tried to sneak them under here when she was sleeping, etc. She would walk off every time, with whatever space was available to her.
The other rat in with her hadn't dropped yet, and is now by herself in the new rack my husband finished yesterday.

After trying everything I could come up with to get to even stay with them to keep them warm, I gave up about 7 last night, and added them to the tote with 2 moms who had already dropped. The first litter in there is 16 days old however, and the 2nd litter is 4 days old, so both are significantly bigger than the new batch.

So far I seem to be having mixed results. 5 of the 8 are still alive, and have decent milk bands now. 1 was dead by cage cleaning last night, 2 more have turned up dead today. All the 4 day old pinkies still are thriving with good milk bands as well. I'm hoping we've settled down and the rest will make it alright, though I know that its no guarantee.

One thing we did notice when we cleaned the mom's cage last night though, is that it seems like she lost a lot of blood. I'm not new to animal or rodent birthing, but there were several corners of the tote that had blood soaked down to the bottom of the bedding. I wonder now if she was just too weak to take care of them.
We seperated her off last night, and she seems to be doing alright this morning as well.

[littleindiangirl]

Ah that bites. Well, to be honest I have never seen a large amount of blood from my girls except with one female's first litter. She had 3 maybe 4 pinks and wanted nothing to do with the one that was alive. She ate the other dead ones. The other pink died shortly after.

She did have a little more blood than I'm used to seeing... so maybe there is something to it. Let us know how those other 5 do. Once they get past the next few days, they should do well I would think. Pullin for ya

[Skittles46]

Thanks for the support!

So far we are at 4 out of 8 still alive, and being taken well (ouch my finger says) care of. They aren't as heavily milk banded as the older pinks though, so they may still be losing out, I'm not sure.

If they pull through until next week when I pull the hoppers out to wean that should help a lot.

Momma recovered well, seems to be just fine, and will be given one more chance once she rests a bit.

[Skittles46]

Well, if anybody is interested in an update, there had been 3 surviving babies from this litter, but at this point I'm guessing their mother may have known something I didn't.

They were fostered out, and seemed for a while to be doing ok. I was doing my rounds checking on mommas (we got them seperated out into a rack, and these 3 were the only ones left with this momma), and noticed how little they were....then I noticed one of them had their eyes open already.

Long story short, they were 13 days old, and weighed between 5 and 11 grams. The next round of pups down, 3 days younger, weighed in at 25 grams or so. Sooo, they have all met their fate in the freezer, and I'm hoping the next round with this mom doesn't go that bad, if it does she will end up there as well.

[ama1997]

Was it her first litter. Ive noticed that sometime the ones that are prego for the first time. They seem to loose alot of babies. But then again I have had lots of first time moms do great.

[littleindiangirl]

Hmm, odd. It will be interesting what happens the second time around.

[Skittles46]

It was her first litter, and after resting some she's back in the breeding mix now. We'll see what happens next time around So far the rest of my first time moms are doing great (32 pinks to fuzzies currently, 3 diff mommas ), so its not a real loss, just something to watch.

[nixer]

it sounds like they were pretty premature to me. that could also have alot to do with so much blood.