# Please help! underage rat wont feed her pups unless forced/encouraged. Need advice!



## AlexyRatta (Jul 23, 2013)

I apologize if this post is sloppy. I have had no sleep and am SO stressed out! So basically I bought 2 9 week old female rats from a reptile store because they were sweet, friendly and I couldn't bare to see them get eaten. Last night they BOTH gave birth on me and I was freaked out cause I had only dealt with rat litter before which was also an accident. --- The first rat is Isobel. She is a GREAT mother and there isn't any concern with her. She made a giant nest and is almost constantly caring for her pups...But the other female, Velvet will NOT feed them, touch them, clean them or go anywhere near them. At. All. I was so stressed out, haven't had a single wink of sleep for the entire night and finally I said 'I'll just force you to feed them' and with the lack of sleep. I'm not very calm. -------- What I did was I brought the babies out in a small box and I brought the mother out, she hid in the corner from them while they squeaked their poor little hearts out. They freezing cold too. --- I set her ontop of them and I held her there, petted her cheek and scratched her under the chin and told her 'it was okay' and to just feed them. --- She will only allow them to nurse off of her, when I set her over them and basically hold her there while petting her. Eventually I didn't need to hold her, but I do need to constantly talk to her, and pet her or she'll run away from them. --- With her being so young, I know she doesn't have any motherly insticts to care for them, I'm basically forcing her, or in certain views helping her. I really love these pups, they are just so adorable and so far all 11 of the pups are still alive. For now. ___ My questions are __ 1. Will this work? Me urging her to feed them/forcing her/helping her? Or should I just let them die? 2. How can I keep them warm when she isn't being forced to feed them? They are so cold because she nor the other mother will go near them in the tank. I have a electric blanket I could put under the tank on a low setting If that will work. 3. How many times a day do I bring her out and have her feed them. Every 2 hours right? Will they be alright over night or will I still have to get up every 2 hours? 4. What is the bare minimum age I can wean them onto food? 5. What are the chances all or even a few will survive. I am fully committing my time to these pups. But I simply am not skilled enough to feed them with a dropper. I don't want to risk drowning them and I won't risk it. PLEASE help, I will do whatever else is needed but I don't want these pups to die.i


----------



## Isamurat (Jul 27, 2012)

First off what cage do you have them in? Do you have a small carrier you could put her in with them. Ideally small enough that she’s not going to be able to get far from them. Move as much of the bedding as you can and make a little nest for them in it that she can sleep on top. Make sure you can put water (i.e. a bottle spout through the roof) and food (a small bowl of some scrambled egg and rice might go down well) in their with them. Then put something over the top so its dark and safe and try and leave them somewhere quiet. If you hear eeping noises then that should mean she’s nursing. Check on them after a few hours and look for milk bands (if your not sure how then let me know and I will post a picture). If they’ve got milk bands they’ve fed. If that works then you may need to leave mum in this small space for a while, as much as it seems a horrible idea she will probably feel safer in there, just get her out for a short time each day as a break whilst you check on and handle the babies (assuming she’s feeding them happily at this point). 

If this doesn’t work then the second option is to look to your other mum, how many babies does she have? Assuming she doesn’t have an even bigger litter than her sister then take mum out and add a few of her sisters babies, rubbing them in the nest material a little. If she has a small litter then you could give her a decent number of them. This may take some of the stress off little Velvet. If velvet is doing well and you give her plenty of extra high protein food then there’s no reason she can’t manage 15 or 16 (mums do occasionally cope with more too if its an emergency, though it’s a lot to ask such a young mum). If her litter is quite small then you could foster all the kittens over to her, or at least try. Either all at once or a few at a time.

In terms of your questions I’ll try and answer them as best as possible, though I’ve not had to hand wean any babies yet (thankfully) plus breeding intentionally means that we make sure mums are nice and old and mentally ready to be mums before they get mated so generally they enjoy the experience too.

1, If mum gets very upset during this then it isn’t good for her and probably not for the babies either. If she puts up with it and trusts you then its definitely better than hand feeding, the chances of the babies making it increases a lot if they get proper rat milk, hand feeding has a low survival rate at best. I don’t think its an ideal option by any means but I commend you on thinking of it in an emergency. The early feeds are the most important.

2, you could try an electric blanket, but keep it at one side rather than underneath. Babies can overheat easily and this is one of the things which does kill them. If you make it so there’s a cool side they can wriggle towards. You can also cover them over with nesting material. Make sure they feel warm to the touch but don’t go overboard. I dont know what the weather is like over there but its quite hot here so I would worry it is easier to overheat them.

3, This is where my lack of experience in hand feeding isn’t going to help (though theres a few people on here that do it regularly), I would aim for feeding every 3 hours during the day, then try and get one feed in overnight (assuming you sleep about 8 hours). As they get older they wont need it as often.

4, I normally find that they are willing to try soft sloppy food (like puppy milk mixed with egg food – a bird product sold in pet shops here, or possibly baby porridge) at around 2-2.5 weeks. Basically when they have fur, their eyes have opened and they start moving around. By about 4 weeks a normal litter is mainly suriviving off the food that they eat rather than mum, however I have heard of rats being successfully weaned at around 3 weeks and could imagine a litter surviving from 2.5 weeks though they wouldn’t thrive as much.

5, Depends on how things go from here, with a litter of 11, even with a happy attentive mum it wouldn’t be abnormal to loose 1 early on. Especially in the first week. Over the next few days you may notice one or two lagging behind as runts. These can survivie and often start catching up once they move to solid food, but they can also fade away. In your case it will depend on what you do. Their best chance of survival is if mum settles down and looks after them willingly. If not fostering some onto the other mum gives those rats a better chance too. If it comes down to handfeeding then the chances for those rats are slim, though some do survive.


----------



## nanashi7 (Jun 5, 2013)

http://ratfanclub.org/orphans.html
Hand-feeding tips


----------

