introducing new females?

[sapphire_moon]

Ok, well my beige rat just gave birth again yesterday, a litter of 12, 2 still born *those fed off one to bp one to corn* and 5 taken, killed and frozen for the corn.
Well apparently my other 1.2 don't seem to be producing anything. Is it possible to intro the other 2 females I have to the other 1.2 that has the babies?

I plan on taking the kits when they are about 2 wks, and killing them then introducing the other 2 females so that the female with the kits won't have any babies to try and protect.

BUT if enough people here feel that it is safe/ok to intro them to the other group then I will do a trial run and see what happens. If not then I will wait till I take the other babies.

The male that isn't in "working" order will be killed off so there will NOT be 2 bucks in the same cage.

Did I confuse you yet? lol

[Auskan]

Hmmm...I'm not sure. I have no experience doing this with rats, but I'll tell you my experience with mice. I had 2 females, in separate cages. I waited until neither had any kittens, then put them in a "neutral" box for a few hours to get to know each other. That went fine. Then I put them both into the cage that one of them had been in previously. Fights ensued. I left them for a little while (supervised) but they didn't seem to be getting any more tolerant of one another. Finally I separated them again. A few days later I made up a rubbermaid for my mice with the plan of giving up both of the mouse cages I had. I put both females, with the male into the rubbermaid. There was some minor scuffling, but things seemed to be going ok. Then a few days later one of them gave birth and after that all hell broke loose. The mother would not allow the female anywhere near the nest and in fact the fighting drew blood on the other female so I had to separate them again. (The mother actually stopped in the middle of giving birth, to fight with the other female). I have now given up on those two ever living together again (they were together for the first 4 weeks that I had them with no problems whatsoever), and am resigned to having two mouse colonies (which actually will be good as for now supply of food is not keeping up with demand :) )

Anyway, I don't know if rats, being far more intelligent creatures, will fare better or not. I would say to make sure the introduction is done in a "neutral" place, but you knew that already. I would allow for as lengthy an introduction as is possible, and preferably when none of the females is even close to giving birth so that they have 2-3 weeks together before there is a nest to worry about. Other than that, keep us posted, and I hope someone on here has some more concrete experience with rats to share.

[Linds]

I would wait until the female doesn't have any of her litter left before introducing any new members. Een if the babies did srvive, it would be a tremendous amount of sterss on mom, and I would be very surprised if they didn't fight. Rats are very good moms, which also means protective of unknown visitors ;) It's always a good idea to replace all the shavings as well, to avoid any scrapping. I've never had problems introducing females while the other is within days of giving birth though, so I wouldn't worry about that.

[sapphire_moon]

ok, thanks. I'll wait till the kits are 2 wks, take them, then put them all in the NEW enclosure. :) I'll let you know how that goes. I have a female from her last litter that will be 4wks this friday.

Do you think it is ok to leave her in there? The mother don't seem to have a problem with her. Only with the male, as he seems to think it's "fun time" lol.

I can't really give her 2-3 wks off, right now she is my only source of food and I am having to buy extra from the pet store for my male bp (my female is still off food). If I weren't doing that I will only be spending like 10 dollars every 1.5-2 months.

[Jayson]

I have introduced new females to colonies many of times, Like everyone said do it when all babies are gone. They may fight a little at first but usually learn to get along within a day or two (just keep an eye on them, watch for signs of stress) If one of them gets badly stressed you might notice her spending her time in a corner by her self and or lossing weight.
I only ever remember having a problem doing this once out of many times.

[sapphire_moon]

And it would help if they are all in a new enclosure so they don't have to protect "their" home. right?

[Jayson]

Honestly Iv never worried about that before, But i suppose it would help.

[Lisa]

I've successfully introduced females while one had rittens (kittens are for cats), what i did was put two bowls of food in the cage and 2 waterbottles (on different levels). I also showed dominance against the mom by flipping on her back and rubbing her belly (best to wear tough leather work gloves for this).
the same method should work when they don't have babies.

[sapphire_moon]

I did what you said lisa, 2 water bottles 2 food bowls. Everything went/going great. The beige mother is still attending to her babies, the other 3 females and male are all piled into a cornor, and she takes a break (about every 2 hours so she's not neglecting her babies) and goes and sleeps with the other rats. So no one seems stressed. I'm pretty sure the other 2 females are pregnant, I hope everything goes smoothly with them as well, as in the male won't kill the babies because they aren't his!

Do they ALWAYS do this? Kill the babies if they aren't his?

I killed the other male. it was my first time...:( I felt SOOOOOOOO bad. Do they always twitch alot?

Thanks for all the advice!