Rats??

[ssscales]

I through in some pieces of wood blocks and they have some cardboard in their as well. They poop like crazy, floor is already full of little raisins, but they don't seem to smell. I also put some Vanilla in the water bottles, so far so good! They sleep most of the day.

The male I have is about the size of a medium rat and the females are somewhat large rats when compared to the RodentPro feeders I get.

When should I begin to expect pups?

[JimiSnakes]

Rats are hard to tell. Usually about a few days b4 they have their litter the moms will have a noticeably bigger belly. B4 that though there really is no way of telling.

[frankykeno]

With your females being of breeding age, and depending where they came from, they could already be pregnant. Pet stores don't always carefully seperate the sexes so if they came out of a pet store (most of mine did) you could already have a litter on the way. If your male is around them for more than a week or two they usually get preggie pretty easily.

Watch for a distinct pear shape though some females don't start to show till they are darn near ready to pop (really big bodied female rats can hide their litters more in the body cavity). About 1 day before they deliver they will make big nests and usually the last week before delivery they are very quiet, lay on their sides or flat on their backs (they look dead! geesh scared me the first time! LOL). They usually deliver easily with little mess and clean up all the afterbirth so really nothing for you to do other than provide lots of drinking water and extra food for the preggie/nursing female.

Maybe these pictures will illustrate...

This is Stubby, a young unbred (and too young to breed) female.


This is Flash who is, I figure, about a week from delivering her first litter. I usually watch for the pear shape and that's when I put them in their maternity tubs away from the breeder male (they can rest and eat lots!). Usually within 4 to 7 days after that they are huge and ready to pop.


This is Lucky who delivered her first litter (12) the day after this pic was taken.



~~Jo~~

[ssscales]

Thanks those pics helped, my females are about her size. They don't let me pick them up with such ease though! I'll start petting them from time to time and hopefully get them comfortable around me.

[Shelby]

I went to my local seed store and they ordered it for me. They can also order Mazuri in 25 and 50 lb bags. Just tell them Mazuri is made by Purina. Teklad comes in 33lb bags.

My feed store can't get teklad.. and I'm not keen on Mazuri because corn is either the first or second ingredient.

[frankykeno]

Well some of it is I'm used to handling them and they are pretty used to me but Flash got her name from being the fastest, most fidgety rat ever born. It might look like they are calmly accepting the picture taking...it's more about my firm grip and that they are smart enough to figure out there's no point in arguing LOL.

I actually rarely play with them all that much, though they get a nice pat or scratch daily during feed but they are not truly pet rats (which can be highly socialable and lovely companion animals). The females that are busy with their litters could care less about me LOL though usually stand and greet me when I bring food or babble to them. Yes I talk to my breeder rats....deal with it folks LOL

Okay no laughing - this works. If you want them to come to you, bring a special treat like say stale bread dipped in a bit of oil or a small piece of chocolate (unlike dogs rats can eat chocolate - M&M's are a big hit in our rat colony)....make a tongue clicking or kissy noise...they will soon learn that noise means you want to handle them and they'll either come to a cage door or stand up in the tub to be picked up (the treat is just reinforcement, eventually they'll respond to the sound - though rats are ultimate moochers and always love treats lol) Ours are so used to Mike and I, the adults pretty much automatically stand up and greet us as soon as we approach their tubs (mooching for treats yet again!)



~~Jo~~

[frankykeno]

Okay just in the interest of equality....here's the reason the females are making me all those lovely feeder rats LOL. Meet Casanova aka Nova, our Black Hooded breeder male. He's our third breeder male...the first was too old to do the job...the second male we bought was mean and bit the females very badly...Nova is just a big nice male rat that does what nature intends but doesn't bully the females around. He's currently bunking in with his just weaned sons as we have no available female for him and like all rats, he likes company LOL.



~~Jo~~

[Shelby]

He's cute Jo. Why do rats have to be so cute? I just fed an apricot dumbo rex baby to my BP. Dang that rat was cute..

[frankykeno]

Hey Nova ain't cute April....he's a manly man rat! LMAO (gawd help he gets thinking he's pretty and sits around grooming all day instead of chatting up the girlie rats LOL).


I'm hoping to get some dumbo's and rex's just for a nice change of pace when we set up colony #2.

Everytime I get a bit of the "oh this rat is too cute to feed" I remember this rat is feeding a dang cute snake and somehow it stops bothering me lol.


~~Jo~~

[Shelby]

Yep. I like 'collecting' different rat colors/patterns. I got these really cool ones from breeding my seal point siamese velveteen rex to my agouti snip berkshire. The pups (some of which are velveteens) have a fader pattern.. it's dark toward the butt, and it fades towards the head. The face just has ghost markings on it.

And then there's the hairless rats that just popped up in a random litter.. that's a recessive gene for you.