Rat problem

[Syco]

My daughter has a male Siamese rat as a pet and was wanting to breed him so that she would have one of his babies when he dies. We got him a female and she has been with him for 3 weeks now and is starting to get plump, I'm expecting her to have the babies in about 2 weeks. The problem is... He won't leave her alone, he is still trying to mate with her and according to my daughter is very aggressive about it.They get along really well and cuddle together during the day, but she says as soon as the lights go out at night he is on her and won't leave her alone the rest of the night. Will this cause any harm to the female or the babies? Should I seperate them? I hate to because because he was an only rat for almost a year and he really seems to enjoy her company, well.... I guess that is obvious :rolleyes: I've never noticed this behavior in my mice, once the female is pregnant they seem to leave them alone, but then again they have other females to bother. Maybe I should add another female rat to keep him busy. What do you guys think?

[sapphire_moon]

if you leave him with her after the babies are born you will get more babies.

I would keep atleast 1 baby boys from the litter, and one female to keep the mother company after you seperate them. Keep the males in a cage together and the females in a cage together. Rats are extrmely smart and very social. Never keep them alone (unless extremely aggressive). And since they are pet rats they should have 2 cubic ft per rat.......here is a good pet rat web site.

www.fancy-rats.co.uk/home/

What you are hearing is force grooming. and it is probably the female attacking the male. When females become pregnant they automaticly become the "alpha rat" and have to prove it out. As long as there is no blood they should be fine. Also sometimes it sounds like they might be out an out trying to kill each other, but they call it playing. lol

[Syco]

Sapphire- I haven't witnessed the behavior myself as it occurs at night when I am asleep, and they are in my daughter's room, they don't keep me awake but they are causing her some sleepless nights! :D She says he is holding her down by biting her neck and is trying to breed with her, I guess he could be the one doing the forced grooming. Maybe I should stay up tonight and "observe". I'm really not worried about extra babies, because I am wanting to start a couple of breeding colonies. I know my daughter is planning on keeping a male and we will probably keep a female as company for Mama rat, so Mama will probably only have a couple of litters before she gets to retire to the good life. I'm just worried about all this rough behavior from the male will cause her to abort the babies.

[sapphire_moon]

nope, I've seen my male do the same. I don't intervene unless I see blood, which has happened more than once, I HAVE to assume because he has a couple of nice holes in his ear. But I never seen this happen. But I have heard plenty of times when they would get mad at each other.

Boy they can get LOUD, and they can make you sit up in bed out of a dead sleep! If it is interfereing with your daughters sleep I would suggest taking them out of her room. (I am assuming your daughter is young. :) ) Especially if she has school!

The holding her down bitting her neck, I have seen my male do this more than a few times, I think it's a dominance thing, As with the "forced grooming" I think thats a dominance thing to.
goodluck with the breeding. It can be fun playing with the genetics!

[mykee]

I've got a few breeding colonies, and as soon as the lights go out, all hell breaks loose. They scream, yell, jump around, play fight and all but it's completely harmless. It will not affect the babies in utero in the slightest. What I would do is to put the cage in the basement or out of your daughters room at night, it can get annoying as all hell to hear. Good luck.

[Syco]

Ok, I feel better now. :) I'll just tell my daughter we can move them to the basement if they are bothering her too badly (Mykee- how did you know I had a basement? Have you been spying on me?:eek: J/K) I don't think she will move them though, the male (Romeo) is her baby and I don't think she would even consider moving him to the basement with the "feeders" LOL!

[sapphire_moon]

Lol. Your right mykee, we have 4 adult rats and now 29 babies! (my other female FINALLY gave birth! 11! :) ) and 2 pet rats (boys) in a seperate cage. OMG when we turn out the lights it's like "YAY, PARTY TIME!" you hear them jumping, screaming, play fighting, one time me and my partner got woke up by the LONGEST, highest pitch screech (right below a dog whistle!), and it went on for like 1.5-2 minutes WITHOUT STOPPING.

I thought someone was getting killed, I jumped up, flipped on the light and it instantaneously stopped! No blood anywhere and to this day I have NO CLUE who did it OR what caused it! lol

[mykee]

Yes, I travel from Toronto to Evansville almost every night to peep on your daughters rats, and your basement. LOL.

[sapphire_moon]

Evansville Indiana right? I think we went through/by there (atleast not far) when we travelled from Mass. to Kansas....

[Syco]

Yep, Evansville, In. Sapphire - you probably did come through here, wasn't very exciting was it? LOL! Mykee- That would be quite a distance to travel just to spy on someone! LOL! You know I was just joking, Right? :D
Thanks to both of you for the advice, and my daughter says they will be staying in her room (she'll just have to get earplugs!) Oh well, she's 17 and everyone knows teenagers don't need sleep, right? :rolleyes:

[sapphire_moon]

ok, I wasn't sure how old she was, I thinking along the lines of 10-11 years old. lol

Have her go to that pet rat website and check it out.

Actually I don't remember. I didn't drive, but alot of our travels were done at night, not alot of people were on the road, which was great for us.

We did go through indiana, and at a hotel called Tally-ho hotel, we oredered pizza from Papa Johns and waited like 3 hours (it was like 6 at night, and we hadn't ate since like 4 in the am) we kept calling them, they finally said that their driver got into an accident, and we were told we would get our meal free. They never showed up so we called Barbatos (excellent! we don't have it in KS).

[Syco]

I don't have to *have* her go to a pet rat website, she is at them all the time! LOL!
She wants a dumbo rat really bad. Just what we need, more rodents that aren't destined to be food (just consume a lot of food!) I don't know about that pizza place, we don't have one around here, I do know there is a place called Pizza King in Muncie Indiana that has the most wonderful pizza I have ever put in my mouth! Yummmm!

[sapphire_moon]

I know it, I could spend all day at ssnakess.com, KS, looking up various other snake sites, and looking at pet rat sites.

I am hoping to be able to get a boy dumbo before we leave kansas. They are just SO cute!

[Syco]

Well... I was a little off on my estimate of when she would have the babies. She had them today, 10! Pretty good for a first litter, she just didn't look that big. I'm used to my mice looking like they swallowed a golf ball. :D Anyway, Mom and pups are doing fine and Romeo is a very proud papa. Now I just have to find about 8 people who want a pet rat because my daughter is keeping 2 and she won't hear of them being feeders! LOL! Anybody out there want a Himalayan rat?

[sapphire_moon]

ya sure! If you want to hold one till june! J/K

Lucky her. Have her build a rat cage, they show directions on that pat rat site I gave you. looks easy enough, all though I know I would mess it up if I had to build it.

My female rats swell up like they swallowed a tennis ball (Or an orange). Sounds like a good number, my beige rat had 10 in her first litter and 12 in her second, w/2 still born. My 2 white rats had 13 w/1 still born and 11 (w/ 3 pups taken for food).

While I've heard that some female rats don't even show they are pregnant, yet give birth to like 14 babies!

[Syco]

She's got them in a 90 qt Steralite, it's about 3 ft long and a little over a foot wide, the top is cut out with wire mesh put in. They seem pretty comfortable in it, and she has them out every night running around in her room ( I guess Mama won't be doing this for a while) They are pretty spoilt! I bought the female (an albino) from a local petshop, out of the feeder bins and when the lady that works there got her out (She knows about Romeo and how he is treated) She told her, the female rat, " Is this ever your lucky day!" LOL!
I think this female is going to be one of those that doesn't show much, I mean, 10 babies and she looked like she still had a week or so to go.

[sapphire_moon]

I personally wouldn't keep pet rats in sterilite/rubbermaid bins. They LOVE to climb way to much to do that. Our boys are CONSTANTLY on the sides of their cage. There was someone on here though that made a cage they could climb on with a rubbermaid/sterilite bottom.

Here is the thread.
http://www.ssnakess.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=298402#post298402

They are such fun, I just got done feeding our boys baby food and ham. Lol, their first time, they attacked the spoon and held on tight, so I couldn't take it out of the cage.

Goodluck with the babies, once they hit the "cute" stage she won't want to get rid of them. Then you might NEED to build a cage!! lol

[Syco]

Checked out that thread..... i like that idea! She doesn't have much floor space in her room, especially when you figure in all the clothes on the floor:rolleyes: but she could build one like this and have more room but still take up the same floor space. I see a project in my future :D
Thanks!