Surprise! Babies!

Last night while I was holding my relatively new rattie 'Gertrude' (I've had
her less than a month) I rubbed her belly and thought I felt something squirm
under her skin. "Feels like a... Naw, couldn't be..." Silly me, I was wrong.

I just got home from work, and had a funny feeling. I came over to check on my
rats, and ta-da! Little Gertie stepped aside as if to say "Happy Early
Valentine's day!" and showed me her two little squirming, squeaking, wee ones.
Unfortunately I also found one partially beneath the bedding that was not
living. I picked it up to see if rubbing it gently might help, but sadly no.
The other two seem lively and healthy. I'll have to wait and see if more are on
the way (probably so). In the mean time I gave Gertie some cat kibble for
protien.

While all together I am glad to have the babies, Gertrude is a beautiful little
dumbo rat with the most superb disposition, I'm a bit concerned for Gertie
because she's young. I'm not sure how old she is, but she's small and as I've
said I just got her. I was toying with the idea of breeding her, but I would
have waited for another couple of monthes. Is there anything I should watch for
and anything I should do besides the usually care you give a mother rat?

suprajulie.DeleteThis@aol.com wrote:

<snip>

>[...] I'm a bit concerned for Gertie because she's young.
>I'm not sure how old she is, but she's small and as I've
>said I just got her. I was toying with the idea of breeding
>her, but I would have waited for another couple of
>months. Is there anything I should watch for and
>anything I should do besides the usually care you give a
>mother rat?

Not that I know of -- just the usual "don't disturb or
frighten her" and maybe add a little powdered milk and
egg (scrambled or hard-boiled) to her diet. As far as I
know, having babies when so young doesn't often harm the
doe, though she might be a trifle smaller than
otherwise when fully-grown -- which is no problem with a
pet rat.

And I've heard of a study which indicated that female rats
that have raised a litter of young are generally more
intelligent, self-confident, and mentally-healthy than those
that haven't. Do be careful, though, to separate any male
young from her as soon as they're weaned, lest she have
another litter (too) soon. An initial litter of three is rather
small, but not unusual (and others might have been born
dead and eaten by her); my experience (mostly with mice)
has been that the young are usually born very close
together sometime during the night, so I can't guess
whether there are likely to have been more born since you
posted this.

Don Fitch

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