# Runts



## Bobshammy (Apr 4, 2009)

I bought three female rats from the petshop. I bought all the same sex on purpose so as not to have babies so you anti breeding activists can relax. Well around 22 days later (one of the females must have got pregnant like the day i bought her) bang! 11 babies! Which is no problem because I love them and I went out and bought some delux cages to seperate my males and females, since i have males now. Anyways off topic. I have been trying to handle the babies but there are so many so i never know if i gave each one the attention and the mom is very protective. They are about a week and a half old now and i lured mom away with a treat and found a runt. He is only half the size of his brothers and sisters and all wrinkley. He was just as squirmy and active as the others so I don't know what to do. Do i give him more nutrition some how or will he grow out of it? anyone else have this problem? to give you a size to visualizes here is the length of the babies:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> here is the length of the runt >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


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## 2boysloose (Jun 27, 2008)

What you might wanna do is like 10 minutes every couple hours or so is to take momma and the runt (along with 3 or 4 other babies to stimulate feeding) ans seperate them from the others (NOT FOR A LONG TIME) so that the baby is sure to get plenty of food as well. 
If you don't feel comfortable doing that, then that's fine, all you can do otherwise is look every now and then to make sure the runt has a milkband on his/her little stomach.

My female had a litter of 13 rittens 8 weeks ago (I still have all the babies) and even though there was one a little bit smaller (not nessecarily a runt), he did just fine. =]


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## lilspaz68 (Feb 24, 2007)

At a week and half your runt is likely to survive. They usually pass in the first night or even week. And they often do catch up.  Does yours look healthy just a lot smaller? Eats well, cries like the others, nice clean fur, etc?


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## Bobshammy (Apr 4, 2009)

He was doing good even though he was quite smaller he had just as much energy as his brothers and sisters and even made it to two weeks, he had fur and everything but sadly he died right before everyone opened their eyes


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