I tried leaving them in at first and ended up losing some of the pinks (which is frustraiting when you have hungry hatchlings)

I switched to seperating the moms and have a much better survival rate.

It depends on how many rats you can care for and how much work you want to put towards them.

In my opinion due to the loss of some of the pinks you would need to breed more rats to get the same number of pinks that someone who seperates the moms can get.

While this is easier for a larger breeder to do (breed more rats and be able keep them all together because there is more dedicated building space for feeders), when you are trying to be efficient and use as little space as possible (e.g. in a spare room or in a garage) seperating moms is better IMO.

For me since I check on the animals daily it was affordable and easy to setup a seperate "momma" rack and then I didn't have to worry as much about productivity and could keep a better eye on the girls and their babies.

That and it was kinda fun to see what litters came out of which moms mixed with certain dads. :-D

My 2 cents anyway. I'd say set it up however you want and see how things go. Different things work for different people