# Two Mums Inter-Nursing?



## EleashaC (Jan 30, 2012)

Hey, everyone! Since I last posted here, some new and... interesting... things have happened. At first, I thought that only one of my three females was pregnant (I'd just acquired them, and the idiotic pet store owners thought all their rats were males, dur). Which was fine, and she had her litter, and everything was great. Then I went out of town for a few days, and my sister-in-law, with whom I had left my rats, called in the middle of the night. The conversation went thus: 

Her: "Hey, remember how we thought Camilla wasn't pregnant? Well, she's delivering, right now. Seven, so far."
Me: "Wuuuuh?!"

So, yeah. Camilla had nine babies, to add to Delilah's two-week-old batch of ten. (Thankfully, I've already got homes for eight, and hopefully will have more, soon.)

Delilah's babies are doing great (besides having FLEAS, ARGH! Does anyone know how to deal with fleas on babies? I've been bathing the adults, but I don't want to do anything possibly traumatizing to the babies!), and Camilla's getting into the swing of being a Mum. 

Today, I have them all out for free-range time in the rat room, with the three respective cage doors open (one each for the mums, and the big main one for little virgin Jenova). They're running all over the place, doing their ratty business... but I just can't keep Delilah out of Camilla's cage! Every time I turn around, she's in there, trying to dig into Camilla's nest to find the babies. I have the door closed, and she's going nuts climbing all over the bars, trying to chew through! I don't think she intends to hurt them; she seems to want to huddle in with them and nurse them. I'm not sure what to do. Camilla's been very protective of the babies, and chomped me a good one yesterday when I reached in to check on them. She had a tussle with Jenova through the bars last night, and has just been generally irritable. She also seems to be ignoring the babies a fair bit; I think she's nursing (I can see milk bands), but I never see her in the nest with them. She prefers to snuggle under her own bit of blanket on the other side of the cage. 

Should I let Delilah in with the babies when Camilla's out running around, or just try to keep Delilah away from Camilla's cage? I don't want to step on any ratty social toes, here!

(And any tips on dealing with fleas would be really great.)


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## PipRat (Jan 24, 2012)

I was just reading about communal nesting and communal nursing the other day. Here is the link http://www.ratbehavior.org/CommunalNesting.htm#Nursing


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