More Rats Born!

I'd say every week or so, I have at least 1 Female Rat give birth to a litter. As I stated they can have as few as 3 babies, or as many as 18. I'd venture to say that the average is around 10-14. Well today, I walked in to check on my animals, and discovered a litter of pinks had been delivered between last night, and this afternoon. 

These particular pinks in this picture are actually going to be a new set of breeders. I try and rotate my females when their litters start dropping below 5. The particular female that gave birth to these, Mayble, will not be rotated out for probably another few months, but her time is coming. She has given me about 6 litters so far, and she only gave me 8 pinks this time.

Rat breeding is great for saving money on feeders, but believe it or not, you can actually sell them for a nice penny to people who have them as pets. Their called 'Fancy Rats" ... just another name for them, and it allows Pet Stores  to put a higher price on them. I will give you just 1 example, of my Rats actually making me money. 

I have 1 Hairless Female Rat. I bred her to my Dumbo Male, and had Dumbo's 'Het' for Hairless. Meaning the dumbo babies, had the recessive hairless gene. Well, I bred one of the Hairless Females offspring to her, and had a litter of all Hairless Dumbo Rats. I sold some for $25-30 each to quite a few people. 

I find the key to successful litters (i.e. Mother not eating them), healthy babies, and great quality breeders, is all in the food. When I first started, I did probably what a lot of people did, I fed dog food. I was still having litters being born, but the babies were always eaten, or turned out smaller, made smaller breeders, etc. That's when I discovered a certain 'Rat Food', which I will write about tomorrow, and boy it has proven to be the key to my success in the Rat breeding world. 

If you'd like to know more about how to breed rats, check back this weekend, and I will provide a 'Step by Step Guide' into breeding rodents. It is not rocket science, but I believe I can provide some helpful tips & resources to get you started.

God Bless.