Reptile & Amphibian Forums

okay so I switched my rats to a 2 male 3 female colony and nothing is happening since my last litter of 12..I have one older male/female set that has given me two litters back to back. The other male and female are just 3mnths and one female thats 5mnths..I recently, about two weeks ago, put them all together hoping the bigger male would get the other two females preg. but nothing is happening not even with my original female..Could the change of enclosure have something to do with it or the presence of two males. I dont want to start all over with new rats it takes too long..I dont need a whole lot of feeders but Im down to my last 3 frozen rats from the last litter and was hoping to already have a new batch ready to go in the freezer..This is not working like I had hoped..Any help before I decide just do them all and buy prekill online..Am I being impatint?

yeah, you're being impatient. Go with 1 male for that group. If one of those females is older, you may let one of the younger females raise up one of her daughters.

keeping 2 males in any breeding group is disasterous. The males will either kill each other fighting over the females, or kill off any babies born.

Keep only ONE male per group.
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1.1 Ball Python, 0.1 motley amel corn, 1.0 western hognose, 1.0 red blood

>>keeping 2 males in any breeding group is disasterous. The males will either kill each other fighting over the females, or kill off any babies born.
>>
>>Keep only ONE male per group.

I have NEVER had trouble with more than one male in a group of rats. If they don't fight right away for 'individual' reasons they aren't gonna go on a rampage.
Mice are entirely different.
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Sonya

Haven't we warned you about tampering with the structure of a chaotic system?
Mrs. Neutron

Switching them around may kick them into delayed breeding. Giving them a bit more time is likely to get more litters. If you are gonna make any more changes I would say make it taking out one of the boys. But personally I have had cages with more boys than girls and they breed. But they do like to know each other first.
Has anything else changed? Temps, food.....?
Two litters shouldn't have worn them out. If it did you should cull them anyway.
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Sonya

Haven't we warned you about tampering with the structure of a chaotic system?
Mrs. Neutron

I went in to do a thorough cleaning and in one of thier hiding boxes found 2 different litters and one was at least 3 weeks old with fur and everything..I hadnt changed thier main hiding box but everything else and I hadnt noticed any getting fat so I just assumed no litters.They were small but first litters usually are, arent they? And also I notice one of the rats is very prego which really shocked me because just the two days ago I had her in the house and was letting her play and she did not look prego.( she is my favorite, very sweet and very pretty all white with a small brownish blaze on top her nose).

Anyway Thanks for all the help and replies, as long as the males are getting along and I am getting litters I will leave everything alone...