Breeding Hairless Rats

As some of you know, I have a 1:2 group of rats. One of which is hairless. I've heard that some people have a hard time breeding their hairless rats because they don't lactate and have a hard time giving the babies enough milk. I've haven't seen that problem with mine. What I've seen is inconsistentcy. Her first litter she had 14 and 2 died. Her second litter she had 13 and 2 died. But on her third litter. She had 15, a few died, but most were eaten. Almost half! Now she had her fourth litter today and I didn't even know she was due. She had 4 huge babies. They are much larger than most rat pinks that I've seen. They look like they are already a week old. I know that's not rihgt because I play with my rats everyday.

Besides nest-building, she showed no signs of pregnancy. Usually her sides bulge out and she's really obvious. I think she will be my first and last hairless rat. Maybe good as a pet, but an unreliable breeder.

I guess I'm just looking for other people's experience with hairless rats as breeders. Just venting too. On the other hand, my mice are doing well and it turns out that there are 6 babies left over from the female I had that died.

Well, I can't say anything about hairless rats as I don't have any experience with them. I can tell you about two of my females, though.

Female 1, Stormy, has given me litters of 8, 7, 10 and 7 with no stillborn or evidence of cannibalism found.

With the other female, Puppy, this is what I've found:

1st litter - 2 big babies
2nd litter - 8 babies (4 stillborn)
3rd litter - 8 babies (2 stillborn, another died 2 days after birth)
4th litter - 8 babies (1 stillborn)
5th litter - 6 babies (1 stillborn, 1 cannibalized).

So, Stormy is definitely the better breeder of the two. Sorry I don't have any experience with hairless rats. From what I've heard, I don't think I'll be getting any either. I wouldn't mind one for a pet, but hey, I already have tons of pets around here. They are very cute, though!!

I'm glad to hear that your mice are doing well. I bet you're excited to have six mice left from the Mom that died. That's great news!

When I first purchased rats to start breeding I chose a female who just happened to be caged with a few hairless rats. She gave birth to her first litter within a few days of settling into her new home. There were only 3 babies, one stilborn, one canabalism. The remaining baby was allowed to grow up a bit and ended up being hairless. I decided to keep her around, and when my origional female had another litter 8 babies, 2 of which were fed off that day, the others allowed to grow a few weeks, the hairless tried taking over position of mother, I'd see the two of them laying on the babies (dad was absent tending to another litter) and once in awhile I'd hear the babies squealing, wondering why they couldn't get any milk from the hairless. I feel that she'll be a tentative mother when she's ready to breed, but I have heard that babies can scratch up their hairless mom's tummy quite a bit. :uhoh:
I have kept the little hairless around more for a pet, and the novelty of it, consitering I've already got two female breeders, but maybe i'll try her out and see how it goes. Sorry not to have a more indepth breeding experience for you.

I have had a lot of health problems with my two pet hairless rats, and from what I hear from other people who have them, that's pretty common. It seems like with all the inbreeding and the recessive genes, their immune systems just aren't that strong. This could potentially contribute to difficulties breeding.

Tiger and Spencer haven't had any serious problems, but they get low-grade respiratory crap almost bimonthly and need antibiotics. It's pretty sad.

Do you have a Hairless male? If so breed him to females with fur and sell any males that they produce and breed the female pups back to the sire you have a Hairless litter make sense?

The hairless females are very inconsistent in breeding. Not high numbers of babies either. I havent had any still born or eaten tho. They were with hairy (LOL) rats. I got tired of never really being able to rely on them and never enough babies. I think 8 was the top number and I had to take a few out just a couple days after being born because of the lack of milk.

On the other hand, when I had a hairless male in with the hairy girls... they make greats dads. Nice size litters, more consistent and the pups just seemed over all more healthy.

I always kept my hairless females in with furred females and they seemed to wetnurse the babies just fine, never had an issue with raising the hairless babies with the help of furry females. I have more problems with the double rex ones having poor production, they appear hairless but it's a co-dom trait as opposed to recessive. But a word of warning, never use hairless rats exclusively as a food source, your snakes poop will be super runny from lack of fur in it. Nothing worse than cleaning up after a blood python fed exclusively on hairless feeders lol

I breed hairless and I have also ordered hairless (on sale) and fed for months without problems with my corns, kings, ksb or pines.

I only had problems with my large pythons who ate retired breeder size hairless rats, where normally the fur helps to bind the waste a bit. I personally noticed a difference, but yeah in colubrids I don't think it would make that much difference as they eliminate more frequently and it's messier to begin with. But I was just saying that with a blood who stored it up for months, it's not a happy ending lol