Reptile & Amphibian Forums

One of my female rats was a lot more pregnant than i thought. So now i have her and 10 babies in the group breeding tank. I usually move my females a couple of days before so they don't get stressed in a new cage. I removed the other rats, but i can only have them out of the cage for a couple hours. How would you recomend moving her to a separate cage without her getting too stressed and abandoning the babies? Thanx

Scott

I would try to gently and quietly coax mom to allow you to hold her. Then place her in the maternity tank and move the babies and place them together in one corner. It won't matter where you put the babies, trust me she won't like it and will prepare a nest and move the babies as you are putting them in there. Unless she is a very nervous or inexperience mom I doubt you will have a problem.

Good luck,
Marcia

Well, I have just started breeding rats myself so I don't have a whole lot of experience. I believe 4 or 5 of my rats have given birth so far and each time I moved them to a tank that I call my maternity ward. If I leave them in with the rest of the rats that are breeding, the other rats step all over the babies and don't give the mother too much rest (not that the babies allow the mom to get any rest either). So far I have seen no problems, all of them have just continued feeding their babies with alot of swapping with other mothers. I guess some mothers are just greedy and want to have as many babies as they can fit underneath them Other than the switching, I just let them do their work, they are great moms. It's so nice to have a constant supply of different size rats. Good luck, Scott.
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