Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I had a female that had babies and at about 2 weeks I took them and killed them except for one because he was small. The other female had a litter in the same tank about 2 days before I removed the other litter. Well she had about 15 from what I could see. I have noticed that the mother that had the first litter is now raising about 7 of the new litter and her 1 left behind baby and the new mother is raising 8 of the new litter. They have evenly split up the litter so they can each raise some. Has anyone else ever seen that, I was just amazed because it almost seemed like it took actual thought and I have always thought of rats as stupi animals on the bottom of the food chain.
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1.1 Motley het butter corns
0.1 Snow corn
0.1 Okeetee corn
1.0 Anery mutt corn
0.1 Stripe Ghost corn
0.1 Amelanistic corn het carmel
2.1 Colombian Redtails
1.0 Hypo Colombian redtail
1.0 Brazilian Rainbow Boa
1.0 Anery Kenyan sand boa
0.1 Normal Kenyan sand boa

although your post is rather confusing, it is common for what you described to happen. Mother rats give birth in a communal location. They share babies and often help in the raising of other rats' babies. The mothers will even go to the point of fighting over the babies. They can do this to the extreme of hurting the babies. Now fathers on the other hand are exact opposites. Males will kill another males' babies. Say a female gets pregnant by male 1 and you move her to male 2's cage, when she gives birth, he knows they are not his, so he will kill them. He wants only his offspring to survive. Its very interesting. Hope this helps and i made some sense. It is late and I am tired. Please excuse any errors as I am not going to re-read this before I post it.
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****Misty****

Due to budget cuts, the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off.

1.1.2 bearded dragons
1.1.1 water dragons
0.0.5 leopard geckos
7.18.4 corn snakes
1.1.0 jungle corns
2.5.0 king snakes
1.0.0 Sinaloan milk snake
0.1.0 Tri-Hybrid milk snake
0.1.0 rat snake
1.1.0 Leucistic rat snakes
0.0.1 royal (ball) python
1.1.0 red headed agamas
1.1.0 Congo African Grey Parrots
0.1.0 German Shepherd hybrid dog

Forgot the term but rats and mice have what is deemed as a high maternal instinct. Also rats and mice females will actually lactate up to feed other babies from newly born up and those females don't necessarily have or had been bred. Many males in the rodent family are rouge males that will do anything to breed ( kind of like us humans ? LOL ! ) including killing and even eating young mice/rats born to whatever. OR even causing enough stress on females to do same. When I bred mice and rats, I kept the ratio of sex to 4 to 5 females to one male with complete success.
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I may be old , cantankerous, crabby, and cynical, but......

And there are exceptions on the males. When I was breeding rats I had 2 males who didn't care whos they were they'd care for them, baby sit and even keep them away from mom when they got older and she was feeling stressed. My third male was not this nice even to his own kids. Best not to try it and see, but it is common enough with the ones I see to be worth mentioning.
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3.4 Normal Ball pythons (Hoss, Little Man, Adam, Helen, Annabel Lee and the new girls who gets named when they eat)
0.2 Snow corns (Legolas, Eurydice)
1.0 Amel het charcoal (Orlando)
1.0 Hypo het anery het Amel (Antony)
0.1 Amel het Stripe (Cleopatra)
1.0 Caramel Motley poss het Amel (Flick)
0.1 Amber (Amberly)
0.1 Normal Cal King snake (Sidhe which sounds exactly like "she"
0.0.1 GTP (Kissy the Red)
1.1 Haitian Boa (Enkil and Akasha)

And bunches of furry pets