Rat Weanlings

[Auskan]

On Saturday I adopted a mama rat & her four pups. I am trying to figure out how old the pups are, since no information was available on them when I adopted them. They are weaned & weigh about 60g each. Any ideas?

[sapphire_moon]

about 6-8 weeks old and if you aren't carefull will start breeding with one another. Rats are sexually mature at 5weeks old.

[mykee]

Auskan, if the babies were kept with a HEALTHY mother for at least three weeks, they could be as young as 4 weeks old. I know that if I leave my good mothers with their young and allow them to be fed as long as Mom will let them, they get really big, really fast. I've had 3 week old pups weigh in at 45+ grams.

[Auskan]

Thanks for the info. They seem so little for reproduction to be something to be concerned about, being only about 1/6th the size of their mama (is she called a dam?), who is 360g. And that does lead me to another question: What is the average litter size? I assume a young rat would tend to have smaller litters than a mature female? (By the way, I now only have 3 pups, one of whom is male. My ball python is looking very satisfied :) )

[Linds]

In my experience the average litter size is anywhere from 11-18. This includes young females having their first litters as well, although occassionally their first litter may be small. If they have a small first litter I still give them one chance to prove themselves, if the second is small as well they are fed off.

[Auskan]

I was thinking about feeding off the two female pups & keep the male, but that would leave him mating with his mother. Does that sound like a crazy idea, or pretty realistic? Right now he looks way too small to even try, but from what people are saying here, he is probably close to mature enough.

[mykee]

You can put sons with mothers, daughters with fathers without any problems. That's how these 'designer' rats were made. With regards to your litter question, I work with Sprague Dawley rats, and a get litters consistently between 12-19, with the average being 14-ish. With regards to rats being sexually mature at 6 weeks this is true, however, I would never breed a rat at that age. I wait for my females to get to 250g and my males 200g before putting them in a breeding program. That way, you give the rats enough time to mature fully and pack on some meat. Some of my females that have a first litter vary in their behavior; some will have very few and be good moms, and others will eat their entire litter, some will have 1/2 of a litter stillborn and so on. I let me females get big though before, so these occurences are few and far between. Good luck.

[Auskan]

Oh No!!! I got home from work today to find that the mother had given birth to another litter! It had ever even occurred to me that she might be pregnant. So, off to get a 10-gallon to keep the weanlings in so she can take good care of her new litter. I now find myself with more food than snakes....

[mykee]

More food than snakes is a good thing. Time to break out the ziplocs..

[Auskan]

Is taking them away from the mother going to stress her? Would it be better to do it one at a time (one a day)? What's the best method of cervical dislocation for a rat pinkie?