# Mamma Keeps Hiding Her Babies, Argh!



## EleashaC (Jan 30, 2012)

Hey, everyone! Thanks to tonnes of help from all the lovely people around here, my surprise!pregnant girl, Delilah, had a successful birth two days ago-- twelve babies! One died a few hours later, and I think she's since eaten another dead one. It disappeared from the closed tank, anyway, so I can only assume. I'm having a bit of trouble getting her to keep them all in one place, though! I check on them only a few times a day (just before I leave for work, and as soon as I get home, and again before bed), because she's a new-to-me rat, and gets very agitated when I poke in my nose. She won't bite me, but she immediately starts grabbing babies and frantically moving them. Quite a few times, I've had to dig through bedding to rescue lost eepers. I'm sure that's why the other two died, from being left out in the cold. 

In the tank, I had a puppy-pee-pad laid down, then two folded towels on top of that. I'd tried a proper nesting box with shreds of flannel and paper towel at first, but she'd have none of it. She kept them between the two towels, usually, but every time she moved them around, she seemed to lose one or two in transit. She forgot where she put the first one, and stuck the second one a layer of towel away, and the third in another layer, et cetera. I've even caught her putting them beneath the puppy pad, on the bare glass floor! I'm so paranoid about it, I want to check in and do a head count a dozen times a day, but every time I try, she gets upset and starts moving them all over the farm. I'm really worried that they'll just die off one by one, and she'll be too vacant to notice. 

At the moment, I've got her in a smaller tank. I put a towel down, covered it with a pee pad, and then taped the pee pad to the walls, so she can't get beneath it. I've got one towel on top, folded double, and the babies are between the pad and the towel. I'm hoping that the lack of options will force her to leave them where they are, and that, if one gets separated, the close confines of the tank will keep it from freezing to death until she can find it. Are there any better ways? Surely this problem has been encountered by others-- is there anything I can do to help her not be such a ninny? Would it be better to put down the aspen chip bedding instead? 

Here are some pictures from yesterday! (At last count, four girls, six boys, near as I can tell.)








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## BaileyBoo (Feb 4, 2012)

Sorry, I'm no help at all with this stuff, just wanted to let you know your babies are gorgeous.


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## Kinsey (Jun 14, 2009)

Aww they are so cute!

Mom should be able to keep them organized, watch for milk bands. Fabric or paper towel bedding is best for babies. I would pile them in one place then leave them alone. Come back in an hour or two and see if momma has moved them and if they have milk bands.

Hopefully someone else has a better idea, too.


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## ratjes (Mar 26, 2011)

Puppy pads are treated with a certain scent to make puppies go potty on it so this could very well be the problem. Besides they are made with plastic which can harm the mother if she chews them to pieces.
I would put her on Carefresh with large newspaper shreddings and let her calm down in a quiet dark area and for you to leave her alone for maybe even a day. Then carefully check on her. Interfering won't help as it even might make it worse. Keep fingers crossed. I would let nature take its course.
Animals move their babies around when they suspect danger to avoid predators from finding their babies.


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## EleashaC (Jan 30, 2012)

Okay, thanks. I think I'll put her in the bare tank with a nest box, and JUST shreds of fleece and paper towel, so she can't bury anyone anywhere. Other than putting the eepers in strange places, she's been a fantastic mother, so far. She nurses them constantly, all ten have nice obvious milk bands, and she very rarely leaves them. I finally caught her out getting a drink this evening, and brought her out to have a run-around with her sisters. She was a little upset, at first, but settled down pretty quickly, and she and her sisters groomed each other for a while. The babies are growing like crazy! They're absolutely huge, and showing skin pigment. Five dark, five light. Two of Delilah's sisters are PEWs, so might the lighter ones be, also?


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## lilspaz68 (Feb 24, 2007)

Mom rats are very instinctual and this is what you are seeing. She needs to be on a soft litter she can push over her babies...carefresh is good, and I usually give paper towels and let her make a lovely warm nest. This keeps babies warm. The 2 that died weren't abandoned, something was wrong with them. The eeping and wriggling kicks in her instincts to care and nurse them, if they weren't and were dying or dead, she wouldn't do anything or she would "clean them up".

Make sure momma has a ton of food and extra protein sources in her diet as well.

Handle the pups while momma is out running.


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## EleashaC (Jan 30, 2012)

How nice.


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## Kinsey (Jun 14, 2009)

I got rid of the spam, sorry guys. >.<


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