Reptile & Amphibian Forums

what weight are your female(rats) when they have their first litter? dave
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"i have a mortal wound!"
"where? where does it hurt?"
"oh, pretty much around the big bloody spot"
"come inside. ill get the neosporin. da na na na na - NEO! ba na na na na na na - SPORIN! blee nee nee......."

ive had 200 gram females give birth.. ive also had females wait until they were 250-300..

ive also seen 175 gram girls pop out super small litters.. like 2-4 pinks only.. these females never do make prolific breeders in the long run..

i would say an average "birthing" weight is around 200-250 grams..

best of luck

dan

I use a line that is a mix of Sprague Dawley and "fancy" rats, namely hairless and dumbo lines. I have a few "pure" feeder strain colonies, but most of my colonies are 1:6, with a dumbo or hairless male being mated to females that carry the respective gene. Both are recessive genes, so the resulting litters are about half dumbo or hairless and half carriers (which become feeders unless I need replacement females).

I put my young females in with a male when they reach 160-175 grams. If they don't give me a litter of 10 or more within 4 weeks, they also become snake food.

An average female in one of my colonies weighs 220 grams. My litter sizes average 15.5 babies.

I didn't weigh either set of mom's I currently have. The first pair (mom and dad) I raised together and let them choose. The second set (daughters), I waited till they were four months old. I noticed no difference. I don't know how old the original mom was. Not real scientific, but there you go.

DeMak

I realize you threw this question to three very specific people, but I'm going to answer it anyway. I just had a 170 gram female, whom I had in a rack with an adult male to mature, give birth to 13 healthy, ALIVE babies this morning, and ALL are well now at 11:00 P.M. Highly unusual, seeing as how I've had over 50 litters, and the average seems to be between 225-275.