Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I recently started breeding rats as my snake collection keeps growing. I had a pair that i raised up together and they gave birth about two weeks ago. In the meantime i placed another adult female with them so she would get pregnant. Everythings going great. So i come home today and i find 1 newborn rat mixed in with the 2 week old litter. I figured the female must have been pregnant when i got her. She has not had anymore babys since, she never looked pregnant, and the baby looks small to me. So my question - do rats ever have part of their litter prematurely and how common is it? I dont think she ate the babys because she seemed so good with the other rats babys.

Thanks,
Dan

It isn't common for a rat to have such a small litter. It is possible she had alot of still born babies and they were eaten before you noticed. Rats and mice are very good at cleaning out any traces of a birth to keep predators from smelling dead babies or blood.

For now I wouldn't worry about it but if the female consistantly has small litters, then I would feed her off and just grow up one or more of the female offspring of the other female rat to increase your colony size.
-----
PHLdyPayne