# Unexpected litter question..



## MomtoPoe (Dec 13, 2021)

A week ago Sunday my daughter brought home a hairless dumbo, she was pregnant and had 10 pups yesterday, 9 survived, I checked them all last night she was doing great they all had milk bands. I went home on lunch to check on her, and another one has passed, he had a milk band, I'm thinking she accidentally smothered him. Of the 8 remaining I can see milk bands but nothing like what I saw last night. Also she jumped straight out of the tank when I opened it, she wanted out.. She is super friendly and just wanted to be on my shoulder. I knew there was a good chance we would loose some of these pups from what I have read about hairless mothers.

I have a furred girl who has 2 week old pups and another girl due in about a week. Both are really good mothers, is it possible to move the pups in with my girl who has the 2 week old pups and then move some of them with the other girl when she has her pups? How do I go about doing this? I don't want to put more stress on the babies, but I want to give them a chance, and I feel leaving them with the mother isn't going to end well.

Thanks for you input..


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## Mkd (Mar 24, 2021)

A mother lactating rat will adopt orphans.


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## Fofo (Oct 21, 2021)

I think if the hairless mom is already nursing them maybe it's best to leave the babies with her. She probably just needs a break from them a few times a day, especially if she is in a small tank with nowhere to roam. One of my rats had a litter a couple months ago and she was a great mom but she still needed some breaks and would go sleep elsewhere for a bit or play with her cagemates or forage around.

Good luck with them whatever you decide to do.


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## MomtoPoe (Dec 13, 2021)

Update:
When I checked the babies last night, 2 were extremely dehydrated, no milk bands on any of them. I put them with the other mom last night, really was hoping I wouldn't need to..

I just checked on them, she was in the nest and nursing.. Hoping for the best.. I just hope she isn't overwhelmed. She already has 10 of her own and I just gave her 8 more..


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## Fofo (Oct 21, 2021)

Oh dear, I wonder if the hairless mom ran out of milk or if she just lost interest in them.

Those babies are lucky to have landed in your hands and have you paying close attention to them!

Maybe you're already doing this but to help make it a bit easier on the nursing mom you could rotate the two litters. I believe 2 week olds are ok to have a 3-4 hour gap between feedings.


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## MomtoPoe (Dec 13, 2021)

Fofo, I also think she wasn't producing enough milk.. 
Thank for the suggestion on swapping out the litters.. I may try that later, she is in a large enough tank that I can drop a divider in..

The older pups have been great with the newborns, they had them all in a pile this morning and where all around them while mom was having her breakfast...


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## Fofo (Oct 21, 2021)

MomtoPoe said:


> Fofo, I also think she wasn't producing enough milk..


That's too bad. I read somewhere that this is common with hairless and double rex rats.


MomtoPoe said:


> The older pups have been great with the newborns, they had them all in a pile this morning and where all around them while mom was having her breakfast...


Omg, that is adorable! 😍 Thanks for putting a good image in my head this morning.


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## MomtoPoe (Dec 13, 2021)

Update: day 4
Lost another baby yesterday was one of the little ones that was dehydrated. As of this morning there are 7. Thought for sure the 2nd dehydrated one would have died last night . All good this morning.

The mom separated the Litters sometime overnight, all the newborns are in a corner where I had attached a heat mat to the side of the tank, they all have milk bands.. yay mama!! Her litter in in the middle of the tank..

I'm thinking she did this knowing the bigger babies don't need her as much..

And when I was checking in on them this morning she bit me.. I guess I'll take the hint and let her do her thing...


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## MomtoPoe (Dec 13, 2021)

Update Day 5:
Lost 3 more yesterday , 4 babies left. It seems the older litter is pushing the younger ones out of the nest and they are freezing.. I've been separating the litters while I'm home, but during the day and at night I can't leave the older ones away from mom for so long.

Yesterday afternoon I split the babies left 2 of the older ones with the younger ones and put the rest with my other girls. One of my other females just started to wean her babies so it works out, she is letting these guys nurse .

Fingers crossed the 4 remaining babies survive and are female, so I can keep them..


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## Mkd (Mar 24, 2021)

You can hand feed them with a one ml syringe taking the needle part off. You can use human replacement milk. Don't use cow milk. You have to rub their stomach area after feeding for digestion purposes.There's information on the internet of how to exactly do the entire feeding process.


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## Fofo (Oct 21, 2021)

@MomtoPoe, Wow! How did you end up with so many pregnant rats all at once?


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## MomtoPoe (Dec 13, 2021)

Fofo said:


> @MomtoPoe, Wow! How did you end up with so many pregnant rats all at once?


I was waiting for this one. Please don't be upset, we breed snakes. We breed rats for feeders.. some of our rats are not breed they are pets..


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## Fofo (Oct 21, 2021)

Ah, I see. I should have guessed but for some reason I imagined you were rescuing them. I'm not upset and I realize that this is a thing that goes on in the world. I really like snakes, they are super neat and I enjoyed catching and looking at them when I was a kid but I don't think I could feed a rat to one. 

I am genuinely curious, you obviously like rats if you have them as pets; how do you choose which ones to keep and which ones to feed? Does it ever make you feel bad? I am asking this as someone who has hunted deer and slaughtered my own chickens for food. Feel free to ignore me if I'm prying. I really am curious though and not here to judge you.


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## MomtoPoe (Dec 13, 2021)

@Fofo I love my Rats more than the snakes. The snakes are my daughter's hobby.. We have 3 rats that are pets, not for breeding, the hairless girl that just had babies is a pet/rescue. I try not to get attached to the babies, my daughter primarily does all the snake feeding.. I cried the 1st free times I had to feed off the babies. 

Of all the babies we've only kept 1 as a pet, To keep my 1st hairless company and warm... It is really hard at times, I really hate it but for what I pay for feeders it's makes more sense to breed my own..

Thank you for being so open and understanding.


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## Fofo (Oct 21, 2021)

Mkd said:


> Your daughter and all snake owners need psychiatric treatment.


Shaming people doesn't work. That is a very rude thing to say to someone you don't even know. It's very likely that things you do or have done in your life contributes to harming animals as well (eating meat for example), but you feel free to be self-righteous because you're not the one directly killing them?


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## Fofo (Oct 21, 2021)

@MomtoPoe, thanks for your response. That does sound like a hard situation. Has your daughter ever considered feeding frozen? I'm not sure if it's a better option considering you'd have to be set up to humanely euthanize them first. I don't know anything about this but I'm assuming feeder breeding forums might have information.


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## MomtoPoe (Dec 13, 2021)

@Fofo breeding rats as feeders is a very touchy subject as you can see. She no longer feeds live, she does humanely euthanize them and freezes for future use. Personally I can't do it, knowing that we raised then makes it very hard for me.. I love all animals.. As we all know there is a process to life.. 
The baby rats that I am trying to save are not ment to be food, they will be pets, I already have someone who will be taking them.. a number of my daughter friends have rats produced by us. So it not all about raising them for food...


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## MomtoPoe (Dec 13, 2021)

@Fofo The 4 remaining babies are 6 days old today. They have come along way this week. I have 1 little one that's a fighter, so tiny compared to it's litter mates. They are all strong and getting big..


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## MomtoPoe (Dec 13, 2021)

@Mkd wow, maybe you should just agree to disagree instead of blasting people you don't know. Happy for you that your a vegetarian. More power to you. Have you ever seen a snake eat! They don't tear apart their prey... Telling someone to toss a family member into a crocodile pit is a bit much... 

Maybe you should learn to just pass on responding to a post that you don't agree with..


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## Fofo (Oct 21, 2021)

Mkd said:


> Hmmm, let's see, according to your reply it is "shameful" for a person to be in psychiatric treatment. I'll bet a lot of mental health organizations and people would believe your reply is quite "shameful". Considering your other disrespectful comment about being self righteous and eating meat from animals is also quite " shameful". I am a vegetarian so I am not a two-faced self righteous person. I use what little power i have to defend the weak and vulnerable. Not justify their misery in death as you. Your statements should be returned to where they originated and that is up your ass. And by the way the next time you go to a zoo throw your baby or family member in the crocodile pit and watch while they have no chance of escape and are torn apart and eaten while they're alive. Hey, its the circle of life, right? Just like you Canadians still chasing down baby seals and clubbing them to death while their mothers watch on so you can make a pair of gloves. Its just the circle of life, right? You need to act "shameful" and get some psychiatric treatment.


I regret that my sentence about shaming people came across that way but for some reason your statement seemed judgemental and like you were trying to shame the OP. You misunderstood my intent. I do NOT think that needing psychiactric treatment is shameful whatsoever. I myself have a dear Uncle who has schizophrenia and I desperately wish that he had access to treatment and there is nothing shameful about that.

There is a lot of ignorance and assumptions in your response. To be clear, I do believe that dropping live rats and mice into a tank with a snake is cruel and I would not do this. I also do not go to zoos, or support them in any way.

Your comments about baby seal hunting are demonstrably false. It has been illegal in Canada to hunt baby harp seals since 1987 and Inuit people never hunted the babies at all. I'm not sure where you're getting your information but if it's from anything that PETA puts out I'd encourage you to look elsewhere.

As for your vegetarian diet, do you not realize that ALL industrial food production harms animals in unimaginable ways? The dairy industry supplies veal and still abuses animals. Even large scale grain production kills thousands of rodents every year. So what are you going to eat now?


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