# Pet Store Rat Becomes A Mama, Again!



## CJMoore (Jul 30, 2013)

After looking at rescues in the area and several feeder bins, we were unable to find a female rat to add to our group. Despite our deep dislike for pet store breeding, we broke down and took home Beatriz and one of her babies, Dakota. Bea just had a litter and we didn't think she could have another one so quickly. Turns out they can get pregnant just 24 hours after giving birth. -_-

No more than ten hours after bringing her home, I hear squeaking in the middle of the night and find a pile of 12 pinkies, so new they were still bloody. Of course we end back to the pet store to figure out how this happened. Apparently the store got way too many hamsters and needed more room for them. So instead of getting more cages they just merged the male and female rats together. During that time Bea gave birth to her first litter which for some reason only had 4 babies in it? No way, the males totally ate them or they sold them as feeders. So 24 hours past and Bea got pregnant again right after her first litter. Needless to say, we won't be going back to that store for rats ever again.

The babies are eight weeks old and we have gotten four of them already adopted. Plus we got a few other people filling out applications for them, it has been so much easier than we thought to find homes for them!

There are five girls and seven boys. Three tan females, one brown capped female, one black Berkshire female, three tan males, one black Berkshire male, one black self, one brown Berkshire male and one tan hooded male.

I'll post pictures of them soon!​


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## JustAGirlAndHerRats (Nov 12, 2015)

I've always heard of people getting pregnant rats from petshops, but it's never happened to me before. I guess that's because PetSmart doesn't sell male rats here. They only sell female rodents to stop people from breeding.


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## CJMoore (Jul 30, 2013)

Yeah, usually having only females works. However I got my first rats from Petco and one of them was pregnant, they only sell females. How it happened, I got no idea. Sadly the poor babies didn't make it, Momma absorbed them because she was stressed out from being in a new place.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

I've seen a very pregnant female rat in with boys at a certain big box pet store that was only supposed to be selling males... The staff was clueless.

I try to only adopt female pups that are too young to be pregnant.


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## Isamurat (Jul 27, 2012)

A litter of 4 isn't abnormal, my current mum has a healthy litter of 3 rather fat kittens, whilst bigger is more common, small litters do happen (annoyingly in my case when I was desperate for a big litter due to the number of people that want these babies lol). 

If people are set on getting pet shop rats I advise to go for bucks and sex them yourself, you can never tell whether a female has been in with a buck prior to getting it. I honestly don't understand how the pet shops get it so wrong when I can sex baby rats from day 1, and could from the first time I tried, and that's long before there balls are visible lol


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## raindear (Mar 3, 2015)

We recently had a pet store open in town. I was excited to see what they had and went in to look around. Saw two tanks of baby rats. I was so excited. A pet store that separated their babies at the proper age - or so I thought. I asked the proprietor which tank was males and which was females. "Oh we have them both together in both tanks." "You do know that female rats can get pregnant as young as five weeks old?" He started to say "Oh it doesn't matter. They're..." Now, here I felt I was reading his mind and if he went on the sentence would have ended "just snake food, anyway." but maybe something in my face clued him in so that the sentence actually went, after a short pause "We're just a stop in transit. They will be sorted when they reach their destination." Yeah, you are a pet store, they are on the sales floor with prices marked, but they aren't going to be sold from here? Yeah right. I just repeated that the sexes should be separated at 4 to 5 weeks and left. I haven't been back and don't intend to.


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## CJMoore (Jul 30, 2013)

These pictures are outdated because they are older than this, but I am sure people wanna see the kittens.
I'll post more when I get home.


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## CJMoore (Jul 30, 2013)

We could tell the genders on day one as well. How petstores can't tell is beyond me. They just don't care about them. Even if they are going to be a snake's lunch they still are living things that need to be cared for.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

The first pet shop we adopted our girls from never sexed their rats... all of the rats were sold by size and as feeder rats... Which is why almost all of our rats have been adopted at about 3 weeks old, one was only two weeks old.

Now raising little pups has become kind of a tradition. 

Folks who have boys don't have the same worries as those of us dads with girls.


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## Ratloved (Oct 4, 2015)

They are way too cute!! I love rat babies!


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## MousE190 (Oct 7, 2014)

Saving pet store rats is great, cuz, they may become snake food. I have seen solitary males(mine first boy was this) alone , no rat social skills, when I ask at the Pet smart, the answer was the male just fight,,, little do they know or care,,,,girls seem to be housed in groups,,,please,,, please, if you feel the need to bring home a pet store rat,,,,do not leave one behind by its self,,, it is just not right


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## MousE190 (Oct 7, 2014)

Wish you the best with the kits,,,may they all find forever homes


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## MousE190 (Oct 7, 2014)

Males become feeders,,,the lame excuse from pet stores,,is the male fight,,,b.s...they don"t care for the animals,,,only the sales.


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## rachieboo (Nov 7, 2015)

I've never taken a great interest in owning female pets, not quite sure as to why in all honesty haha. I am so glad I prefer males though for this very reason, being as female rats tend to have a more numerous amount of health issues, and where I live the closest avaliable rats are from pet stores. Luckily, the closest pet store to where I live knows to seperate rats based on sex, though unfortunatly end up with a few odd pregnant ladies due to the fact that they had been brough to the store with a male or what have you. The odd thing about this store is that they sell some rats as strictly pets only, yet then they have a much larger assortment of the size specific feeder rats. It makes me quite curious as to how they determine which ones are worthy of a home... When I had gone there last Friday to find two babies, I found myself falling for these two 'small' feeders that simply wouldn't leave my hand alone as they continuously fussed over me and begged for attention. Their living conditions are simply unbearable, a tiny tank not even big enough to properly house one rat, yet full of the poor critters. The walls of it were stained yellow from the urine, and it smelled awful, as did they. I spent my time interacting with them and getting a feel for them, when the young lady working there brought a box over to me. I turned around for a moment to talk to my sister, and the next thing I new the lady had a hold of my boy El's hind leg and dropped him into the box. I was literally furious and demanded that she leave them to me. Poor guy quickly sought out some attention, and little Fred soon joined him inside the box, though I transfered them into a carrier I have once we made it out to my car. I find it sad how my two boys didn't even amount to 10 dollars. Putting a price on a creature's life is so wrong. It just pains me to know they were being sold as food, when they are truly so perfect and loving.


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## Jennythewatt (Oct 14, 2013)

I know of two rats that had a litter of five; both were from the same home. The babies ended up being surrendered to a rescue in my area. I think it is possible for a doe to have a small litter if she's stressed/malnourished. I don't think that woman involved was very responsible. I know that sometimes accidental litters happen at home even with responsible rat parents, but she had somehow had a male get one female rat "accidentally" pregnant, and then get another one "accidentally" pregnant a few weeks later. Some of the babies also had serious injuries when the came into the rescue, like they had been fighting with older rats.

But yeah, also, sometimes small litters just happen with healthy rats too. Not sure why...

I'm glad you're having an easy time finding them homes!


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