Rats - Page 4

ema-leigh · 10-26-10, 11:40 PM

The tiny babies can catch up with good nutrition! You could give them things like banana, baby rice cereal, baby food, dog food, chicken, tuna, boiled egg.... lots of good fat and a little extra protien to their regular diet.

I would consider removing the odd eyed boy from your breeding program (and related offspring). The gene that causes this.. also causes mega colon. Basically the lighter eye is lighter because the gene stopped pigment working in that area. The same for any white areas on the body. In about 90% of cases the gene affects the insides of the rat as well, mega colon is basically where their intestines don't work and they can't process food or poop right. You will notice these babies, they are sickly looking they don't thrive like the other babies.. they look bloated and their death is very painful for them.
Here is a link for more info on Megacolon: Health Guide: Megacolon
Link about the genes + mega colon: White blazes and megacolon
Pic of a litter of babies, the ones with mega colon are obvious. The other babies in the litter have a 50% chance of getting late on set mega colon when they are 10 months or older.

Jenn_06 · 10-27-10, 05:03 AM

thank you for that info,i know nothing is wrong with his colon because that guy can poop alot lol, but i think he will love to be our forever pet rat he is too sweet.

infernalis · 10-27-10, 05:10 AM

What factors would cause a mother to just ignore her offspring and let pinkies starve to death??

I'm thinking it may be too many rats in one colony, I have not delivered to the pet store in a while, I really NEED to gather up all the extras that are weaned and get them to the pet shop.

That will not only get me some much needed cash, but drastically reduce my food bill.

Jenn_06 · 10-27-10, 05:29 AM

we really need to put this as a Sticky, there are alot of info we can use and a place we can ask ?'s/

infernalis · 10-27-10, 07:34 AM

done....................

maitre · 10-27-10, 10:51 PM

I breed ASF's right now and cannot decide on a decent method of euthanasia. I care for my rats as much as I care for any of my other animals so I really don't want them to suffer : \ They are on 2 different lab diets right now so I am sure they are getting their nutrition. As a supplement, I give them carrots sticks every other day and some mixed bird seed as well. As a snack, I give them whole almonds and walnuts and THEY LOVE THEM haha I have them in a 3:1 set up and they just produced 45 young 1 week ago... so about 15 young per mother.

I am planning on using CO2 because I don't trust myself to break their necks properly. I know 2 people who have worked in university labs (masters and phd students) so I will ask how they did it. In fact, one of them already told me how they did it.. they used injections, followed by decapitation (to do brain slices).

I cannot do lethal injections because my ball python will be eating them. I'm really at a loss here...

infernalis · 10-28-10, 12:32 AM

I may get some friction for this, but...

If you do not have the heart to do it, under close supervision constriction is relatively humane, and natural for the snake.

What I do (for "population control") is place them in the BP cage at a younger age, a small weanling is a very quick kill for the python, and it's not "on you" to do the killing.

My BP has never missed the mark and got bitten yet.

However the down side to that is some BP will become fussy and only want to eat live weanlings.. ours is a garbage can and he will eat rats/mice/thawed/live or pre kill, he don't care as long as it's food.

ema-leigh · 10-28-10, 12:34 AM

Over crowding could defiantly cause a mother to abandon her pups..or if the mom knows theres something wrong with them she won't waste her resources feeding them. (although I have seen some really good moms try nurse dead babies!) If she has had a few litters back to back, she made need a few weeks break. Or if she is quite young, she may not be mentally mature enough....
To combat the over crowding issue add lots of card board boxes so they have separate nests and they will feel more secure. Make sure they have lots of food as well, moms likes to build a nest and hoard food into stashes so they feel prepared to raise them.

I don't think there will ever be a nice way to pre kill them. I was having the discussion on another pet rat forum and we were debating a few methods. The best we could come up with, which you may like to put into practice and tell me if its okay, is to set up a dark box with a strong modern metal rat trap. You can put a little treat on the rat trap and just put the lid on the box til you hear the rat trap go off. I feel that will give the most efficient way to break the neck and low stress for the animal. What do you guys think?

infernalis · 10-28-10, 12:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ema-leigh

Over crowding could defiantly cause a mother to abandon her pups..or if the mom knows theres something wrong with them she won't waste her resources feeding them. (although I have seen some really good moms try nurse dead babies!) If she has had a few litters back to back, she made need a few weeks break. Or if she is quite young, she may not be mentally mature enough....
To combat the over crowding issue add lots of card board boxes so they have separate nests and they will feel more secure. Make sure they have lots of food as well, moms likes to build a nest and hoard food into stashes so they feel prepared to raise them.

Thank you for that post, I will make those changes... It makes perfect sense.

dragunov.762 · 10-28-10, 10:08 AM

i used a mouse trap on a mouse with a broken back (the mouse was food for my exs corn snake but he wouldnt eat so we put the two mice in with her rat temporarily, the rat loved the mice but rolled on one in her sleep and broke its back so it was in terrible pain) the trap killed in instantly.

Jenn_06 · 10-28-10, 01:46 PM

we used the mouse trape once and the mouse got hit on the head that was a bloody mess.

candyraver69 · 10-29-10, 08:53 AM

I've seen some healthy odd-eyes have healthy litters but also heard the horror stories of people losing 1/2 to whole litters to megacolon. It's especially important not to breed high white into hairless because somehow that has an especially bad success rate. down-under markings also cannot be bred to high whites (although I doubt these show up for feeder access do to the rarity).

your best bet is to avoid any rat with white patches on the head or odd-eyes when breeding feeders since you aren't keeping pedigrees to tell high white from recessive blazes.

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super small rats could be malnourished but there is also the possibility of dwarfs? Full grown they are slightly larger than gerbils. if they are dwarfs it's recessive so with a lot of inbreeding you would be seeing more pop up if you breed them which may be undesirable for feeders.

infernalis · 10-29-10, 09:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by candyraver69

super small rats could be malnourished but there is also the possibility of dwarfs? Full grown they are slightly larger than gerbils. if they are dwarfs it's recessive so with a lot of inbreeding you would be seeing more pop up if you breed them which may be undesirable for feeders.

I watched this one progress, those babies were largely ignored by an inexperienced mom.

And please don't take offense, but the smaller ones are a better fit for my BP than a larger rat would be, so actually, the little runts are ideal feeders for him.

candyraver69 · 10-29-10, 09:18 AM

Huh, I guess I always just assumed the bigger the better because you could just feed them to the snake younger if they were already the right size. I suppose you have a bigger time frame to work with if they are smaller though before they are too big to feed it. No offense taken

infernalis · 10-29-10, 09:21 AM

Thanks for understanding

Now if I had a big boa constrictor, then those little rats would be well, too little.