Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello all,

I have been having some really bad problems with my rat litters. My females usualy have litters between 12 and 18 pups, but many of them die. I usually find that of an average litter of 14, only 4-6 survive the first 2 weeks. The female rats have never eaten any, they are just found dead. I only have 2 thoughts. 1, I just realized that I am using Pine as a substrate, could that cause this problem? The other thing I was thinking is that I breed and keep my rats in the same room as my snakes. That room is usually between 78-82 degrees. Is that 2 hot? Anyways, any and all suggestions would greatly be appreciated....

HOOPY

its not the pine.. i use pine for all my rodents and ive never had problems with it..

i bet money its the HEAT factor.. anything over 75 is bad in general.. find some place cooler.. down into the 60's is ideal..

best of luck

dan

My rats have been going fine even with 90F temps in southern California. If this has been a problem all along, maybe you have a bad strain?

DeMak

My rats have been living in 80-85 F in Southern California. I have had mothers still birthing and caring for the litters with minimal loss. Actually the only loss of babies I had was right after birth she ate babies that were possibly too weak to survive anyways and also lost a couple of babies when the mother died leaving orphaned babies. But I have but those babies to a new mother. I am more careful not to let my temperatures go over 85 during the hottest part of the day. That one day was just way too hot...

Sorry, hit the post key too quickly.

Did all the mothers come from the same location? Can it be possible that some or one of the females doesn't produce enough milk to nurse? It happens, but if you have alot of females from different source, you have to have really horrible luck to have all females unable to nurse. Maybe one or a few can but if kept together, the babies rotate on feedings so one can be suckling the good mom then end up with the non-milk moms for a day or more starving to death. Check to be sure they are getting feed enough by checking the white tummys.

Do rats and mice have the same temerature requirements?

I recently had this problem.

I had an older litter of 13 about 2 1/2 weeks old and a newborn litter of 18. I lost all but 3 of these.

I have my rack outside under a big over hang in the shade. It seemed i lost the mojority of babies on the hottest days. I put on a sprinkler in the grass on the hotter days to cool that whole area down which works pretty well. But I dont think it cooled down enough for the smaller babies. i think being under momma can get pretty hot. especially when the temps are over 85 or so. And the fact that there were fuzzies suckling also which added to the heat.

I think the next litter i have during a heat wave i am going to seperate the mom and babies. And put a fan on thier tub.
Im setting two bins aside with fans just for nursing mommas!

Take Care
James baiz

>>... My females usualy have litters between 12 and 18 pups, but many of them die. I usually find that of an average litter of 14, only 4-6 survive the first 2 weeks. ...

Just think about it. Feeding 12 to 18 pups takes a LOT of milk.

I never leave any of my momma rats with a BIG litter. If there are more than eight pups in a litter, I reduce them to six or eight within three days. After another five to ten days, I usually cull out another two or three, so that the momma only has three to five babies to nurse by the time they're less than two weeks old. This guarantees that all babies get well-fed, and grow optimally. It also ensures that the mommas don't wear themselves out trying to feed a litter that outweighs the momma by half as much again as her own weight. Even with only three or four babies, that litter can weigh as much as she does by the time they're four or five weeks old. I usually wean them before they're four weeks old, then give her a break for a few days (up to two weeks) before re-breeding her. Maybe this doesn't get the maximum number of pups from her, but all her surviving pups are fat and healthy when they get weaned.

The temperature isn't a factor. I keep my rats at 75 to 80 deg.F all year 'round.

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tricia

what are you feeding the moms are they getting enough nutrition also a rat might kill them and not eat them and lastly could there be too many in the tank , to much stress maybe

how many litters in a row have they had? Is the male in there all the time? I am guessing that you are putting them through too much. Give them some time off. I usually do as Patricia suggested by knocking down litter size if I want them raised more than a couple weeks. I want 40-50 gram rats. To get them I cull the litters down in the first week and then cull more in the second week. And every now and then I give them a month off.
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Sonya