Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a question for you. I was reading your post below, where you said you oldest rat never had litters of more than 5. Her daughters produce 8-9 babies, and arent that good of mothers. Now, I have just got into rats, and have a 1.4 setup.I have had 3 litters so far, and the smallest one was 15 babies(live). They are phenominal mothers, and were purchased at a local pet store (I got the male at a different pet store). I couldn't immagine putting up with the hassle of breeding, cleaning, and taking care of the rats of i wasn't getting a good production out of my mothers. It would be a colossal waste of effort and money.

My question is, why did you keep a mother that only produced 5 kids max, and on top of that, if she was such a low volume breeder, why did you use her kids also? I am looking at the genetic line of things, assuming that you are feeding them enough protein ,calcium, and fat.

This is not a personal attack, far from it. I am just wondering why you keep these mothers if they are not producing for you. You said they were frustrating you, so shouldn't you change something?

I am just curious and bored at work, and I think that you would have a much better time if you got a new blood in there, and cull off the old. I think these guys are far more fun than mice, and I am already plotting out how im going to mess around with their genetics.

Just killin time,
Truth

P.S. I would like to reitterate that this is not maliscious in any way, shape or form.

The main reason I haven't just culled off the whole lot is I don't really need to have alot of rat offspring at this time. Also, I had originally bought the mother as a pet then decided to breed her. I will probably find her a new home or sell her as snake food in the next month or two as I will be moving and much easier to do so without a lot of rodents to move.

Her daughters however, seem to be improving, maybe having the males in with them was causing problems as now that I got rid of the males (decided no point breeding them if I plan to get rid of them all anyway), the females that were pregnant dropped a litter of 8 and 12 this week. All look very healthy and seem to be well taken care of so far.

Good to hear that they finally started to be better parrents. Too bad they waited till you were done with them. I wish you better luck with them if you get back into rats. I am having a blast with these guys.

Have fun moving, I hate that stuff, packing, unpacking, everything gets jumbled up, stuff inevidably dissappears, breaks, or gets overlooked. I have been nearly nomadic for the last 4 years, so i wish you all the luck with that.

Thanks. I typically wind up getting rid of alot of junk between moves, so it's not all bad. I to intend to get back into rats once I get settled into my new place as I do find them interesting.