Starting a rat colony, a few questions!

Another nice bit of info if you power-breed:

Postpartum conception is a subject of great interest to rat owners. For example, some new rat owners are surprised by an unexpected litter. Their presumed same-sex pair of rats is actually a male-female pair! Such owners wish to know how quickly they should separate their rats to avoid another litter.

How soon can a female conceive another litter after giving birth?

The answer is soon! Females go into heat between about 10 and 24 hours after giving birth. Specifically, females go into heat on the first evening that is at least 10 hours after giving birth (Gilbert et al. 1985). This phenomenon of coming into heat shortly after giving birth is called postpartum estrus.

However, eggs fertilized during a female rat's postpartum estrus may not implant right away, due to a lactation-induced delay (Mantalenakis and Ketchel 1966). Female rats that conceive during their postpartum estrus may therefore go through an extended gestation of about 32 days (+-1 day) rather than the normal 21-22 days (Mennella and Moltz 1988). To the rat owner, it looks like the female conceived about 10 days after giving birth, when in fact she conceived shortly after birth but simply had a longer pregnancy than normal.

After the postpartum estrus, the female rat does not come into heat again until after the weaning of her litter. This estrus is called the postweaning estrus and it occurs about 29 days after a female rat gives birth (Mennella and Moltz 1988).

So it may actually take longer if you keep the male in with the female than separating him for at least a week By your theory, you are actually generating less litters by keeping them together. It seems like this is natures way of forcing a break ...

Bravo!! Keep it up! I'm actually learning quite a bit from y'all! Well I moved the weanlings to a tub, their momma is with the male, and the other momma and pinks are in a tub. What do the females look like when they're pregnant? Just really big?

Originally Posted by AdamR

Bravo!! Keep it up! I'm actually learning quite a bit from y'all! Well I moved the weanlings to a tub, their momma is with the male, and the other momma and pinks are in a tub. What do the females look like when they're pregnant? Just really big?

Absolutely, to each their own. I just wanted to add how I felt which shouldn't be taken as right or wrong, on either side.

I'm not good at guessing whether they are pregnant until a week before they birth. After a while you can get a feel for their hip size which gets wider and the big ol' belly. The big hips give them a triangle-shaped build. I also pick them up by their tails sometimes and watch their belly shift.

Originally Posted by Focal X

Another nice bit of info if you power-breed:



So it may actually take longer if you keep the male in with the female than separating him for at least a week By your theory, you are actually generating less litters by keeping them together. It seems like this is natures way of forcing a break ...

at 31 days you are where I previously stated. (naturally or not)

My rats are frozen or fed off at 19 months ( to clarify)

From what i have read online red dye is no good. Have i ever taken a chance no. I was just stating what i have read. Dog food is made for dogs hence the name dog food. They make rat food for rats. U dont see people feeding rat food to dogs. Stick with mazuri 6f cant go wrong.

do a google search on red dye in dog food and snakes read all threads and make ur own decision