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Bad rat mother?

F

Flagg

New member
I have a rat that had her first litter at 14 weeks or so. I didn't think she was that close so didn't get a chance to move her to a nursery tank and she gave birth on the wire 2nd floor half in and half out of a PVC tube. I tried to leave her alone but I could see from the start that she didn't really know what she was doing, trampling the pinks, pushing them out of the tube and onto the wire where they would get stuck, etc. So a few hours after birth I moved her and the litter to a small separate cage. At that time there were 6 live and one dead pink.

Over the next couple days I left her alone as much as possible but whenever I would check on the pinks I would find more dead and no milk bellies. While she would lay over them and clean them a lot she never appeared to be nursing, or they didn't know how.

Over the next 2-3 days I tried everything I could to save them as I was expecting my first blues in this litter and wanted to grow them out. I put her in an even smaller tank so she couldn't get away from them, even tried fostering them with lactating mice as a last resort and that didn't work.

They all died, 2 feeding my yearling corns and the rest in the freezer so it's not a total waste.

My other females are siblings to this failed mother and now I'm worried that none of them will make decent mothers or will all be unable to lactate.

Has anyone else had a similar experience and do you think she might do better next time? Maybe it was the move that screwed things up?

None of the other females are pregnant and frankly I'm finding it harder to get them to breed than I had expected. I can never tell when they are in heat and whether they are or not they never seem to want to let the males get close to them. I normally keep the males and females separate as they are more pets than breeders but I do want to be able to get a litter now and then.
 
I have 4 female mice and 3 of them killed their first litters. There second litters have done much better with 0 killed. I think she will get the hang of it.
 
Give her another chance to have some babies before you label her as a bad mother. If not for all the doctor's adivce, mother's advice, books and internet, we would be clueless as how to raise a baby on our own too. She'll learn from her mistakes.
 
I do plan on giving her at least one more chance, although next time I'm going to try to make sure there is another female already with a litter so she can foster them if this female turns out to not be lactating a 2nd time.

It's just annoying because I've been waiting for 3 months to breed this generation of het blues so I could get some blue rats and when one finally gives birth they all die of neglect. I think a couple of them were blue as well, though it's hard to tell at pinky stage.

While this was happening I searched some pet rat forums for information and all I found were hundreds of horror stories of the evils of breeding pet store rats and all the genetic problems they are bound to have. So I was (probably irrationally) worried that this whole generation was defective or something. Plus now I won't even be able to know for sure until another litter comes along, and with these females who knows how long that will be.
 
The only problem I ever had with pet store rats is the moms get nippy right before and after she has the babies. Other than that, you can't be sure of the genetics, and they don't do much for any breeding programs because they could be mixed with anything. But usually you'll get a few the same color as the parents.
 
Well I do know my current generatioln is het for blue because their parents, the "pet store rats" were a blue hooded male and a black berkshire female. I ended up with black berkshires het for blue. breeding 2 of those black berkshires het blue should result in 1/4 blues. That's where I'm at now.
 
My mice usually don't do so well with their first litter. My rabbit killed two in her first litter. My hamster killed her first litter as well. I wouldn't worry much about it now. Give her another chance. What kind of diet are you feeding?
 
I feed them Mazuri 6F Breeder lab block and supplement with daily fresh fruit and vegetables, occasionally some higher protein and fat puppy food when they're pregnant or allegedly nursing.

She didn't kill them like mice or hamsters do, they starved. She appeared to not have any milk at all. Not even the prominent nipples like they usually get when prognant and nursing.
 
If she didn't produce milk, it may have been more of a hormonal problem. So I would let her try again, if she still doesn't have milk the next go around, there might be something wrong. But if you have another female that is nursing, she will foster the babies.
 
Well an update on the "bad mother" =). She had her 2nd litter, and this time I left her with her mother who has also just had her 2nd litter of 14 and all are feeding well. Well the "bad mother" rat from before had hers in the wheel, only 7 this time, and promptly ignored them. Luckily the other female took them all from her and is now nursing 20. I'm going to cull them down as soon as they start showing fur so she doesn't have so many to handle. Hopefully they'll all make it until then. Not sure if they're all getting fed when it's just one rat feeding 20, and 14 of them are 3 days older.
 
Flagg said:
Well an update on the "bad mother" =). She had her 2nd litter, and this time I left her with her mother who has also just had her 2nd litter of 14 and all are feeding well. Well the "bad mother" rat from before had hers in the wheel, only 7 this time, and promptly ignored them. Luckily the other female took them all from her and is now nursing 20. I'm going to cull them down as soon as they start showing fur so she doesn't have so many to handle. Hopefully they'll all make it until then. Not sure if they're all getting fed when it's just one rat feeding 20, and 14 of them are 3 days older.
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They should do fine, they just won't grow as fast. I've had the same thing happen, but all made it to the right size I wanted, it just took a little longer for them to grow.
 
Flagg said:
I have a rat that had her first litter at 14 weeks or so. I didn't think she was that close so didn't get a chance to move her to a nursery tank and she gave birth on the wire 2nd floor half in and half out of a PVC tube. I tried to leave her alone but I could see from the start that she didn't really know what she was doing, trampling the pinks, pushing them out of the tube and onto the wire where they would get stuck, etc. So a few hours after birth I moved her and the litter to a small separate cage. At that time there were 6 live and one dead pink.

Over the next couple days I left her alone as much as possible but whenever I would check on the pinks I would find more dead and no milk bellies. While she would lay over them and clean them a lot she never appeared to be nursing, or they didn't know how.

Over the next 2-3 days I tried everything I could to save them as I was expecting my first blues in this litter and wanted to grow them out. I put her in an even smaller tank so she couldn't get away from them, even tried fostering them with lactating mice as a last resort and that didn't work.

They all died, 2 feeding my yearling corns and the rest in the freezer so it's not a total waste.

My other females are siblings to this failed mother and now I'm worried that none of them will make decent mothers or will all be unable to lactate.

Has anyone else had a similar experience and do you think she might do better next time? Maybe it was the move that screwed things up?

None of the other females are pregnant and frankly I'm finding it harder to get them to breed than I had expected. I can never tell when they are in heat and whether they are or not they never seem to want to let the males get close to them. I normally keep the males and females separate as they are more pets than breeders but I do want to be able to get a litter now and then.
Click to expand...

I always keep my males in with the girls and they are still good pets (except the moms with babes). The girls will accept males that they hang around with all the time, he becomes part of the family unit unlike a male that is only there to do the deed. They probably view the males as intruders if they are not with them 24/7. Intruding males will kill a pregnant female's babies as soon as they are born so they can make new babies with their own genes. You want the males to be with the girls and part of the group. The males will breed with the girls as soon as they pop out a litter so they don't go barren so long. Even if they miss breeding right after a litter the males will know when their next heat is and breed. I've found the males are really good parents (with their own babies), cuddling with the babes, even giving them baths. One thing I have found is that if you have wire bottomed cages or shelves that always seems to be where they want to have their litter. I keep them 1.3 in a 10 gal or larger aquarium and let them out for play time. If I get a girl that is a bad mom I feed her off to my python. They don't seem to get any better with time and you just spend money on feed and bedding for nothing. Keep a couple of girls from your most productive girl and let them be raised with their mom. Mom will teach them good parenting skills. I will usually leave the young girls in until mom has a new batch of babies, you will see the young sister rats care for the new babies. They will be much better mothers than if they had been taken away from mom right after weaning. I think they learn more of their parenting skills that what they get by instinct. :wavey:
Silvia
 
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