Rat breeding

[Wizer69er]

Hello i was just wondering because i am still new to breeding rats if and how long you rest your female rats after a litter.If you do how do you go about it?Thanks B.J.

[sapphire_moon]

I am also really new to rat breeding. I plan to continuosly (sp?) breed back to back. And keep a good high proteine diet with plenty of veggies and fruit available to them, and they should be fine.

When people rest them I think they rest them for about 1 month..but I'm not sure. People with more experience will be able to help you better......Hope I help.

[Auskan]

They can be bred back to back - I guess some of it depends what your needs are. I have 1 male & currently 2 females but in order to control breeding, since I don't need that many rat pups, I am keeping them in two separate cages, so will be keeping one female from my current litter so that I have 2 cages with 2 each (2 females in one, male/female in the other). Rats don't like to be solitary. I will rotate the females, so each will only have a few litters a year.

[Wizer69er]

ok thanks.Also have another ?out of a litter do people breed the same babies from the same litre together or is that a no no?

[BoAddict]

i continuosly breed my rats , i generally dont raise the babies up to breed but as a food source.
i would try and avoid inbreeding the rats as much as possible, but if you do just try and keep track of how deep the inbreeding go's

[sapphire_moon]

I would only in breed if NONE of the babies would be used for breeding. So as to not make the gene pool week, and cause immune defficencies, and in the long run make the rats sick.......does that make sence? lol I had it explained to me but I don't know if I explained it right?
Like when I go to feed off my breeders, I'm going to keep 2 females, and then take a male from my pet rats group to keep the line new.

Wow, never thought I would get into even the slightest bit of genetics! :eek:

[Wizer69er]

Well i think what i am going to do is keep a few females babies from my breeding group and just buy another male from someone and breed the new male with the females when they are ready.

[Linds]

I've never rested my females between breedings. As long as their diet supports constant nursing/pregnancy, then you shouldn't have any problems.

It's a good idea to start your initial breeding stock as unrelated as possible, since it is common (unless you plan on only using new blood for breeders) to just keep replace breeders with stock you've raised up from them. I personally don't keep track of the inbreeding in my colonies, but every so often I add some fresh blood in.

[mykee]

If you're worried about 'weakening' the bloodline by inbreeding, you wouldn't have to worry unless you inbreed for hundreds of generations. For your average 'breed-to-feed' rat breeding colonies, inbreeding will cause no ill effects. I personally just introduce a few new females every six months or so.

[Lisa]

we used to give them one month between breedings.