Rat baby questains (i need help)?

Question

1.well 2 babies turn purple (1 day old) and then disopered what happen?

2. well the babies are 2 to 3 days old am i able to hold them, if not when?

3. would this harm them: well i take of the lid off the nest and when i do she carries all her babies under this castle thing, so what i did is i put a sheet under the castle thing, and she carried all her babies on the sheet so i caught the mum and put her in a smaller cage, then i picked up the babies ( in the sheet ) and put them in the smalll cage with their mum. ( while i was cleaning then i put her back in her normale cage after ) should i do this again or will it harm her?

and if anyone knows info that would be great to tell me

thanks =)

Answer 1

if a baby disopered then it may have been eaten my a parent rat. but the most important thing is try not to move the babies again until they grow hair and can crawl, changing the surroundings really stresses out the mother, cleaning the cage is not extremely important. rats rarely reject babies after human contact but there is not much reason to touch a newborn baby, just be careful.

Answer 2

I have always been told that you cant touch baby rodents or the mother will eat them.

Answer 3

1. The mother rat always eats her sick/dying young- that is probally why you did not find the babies

2. as from experience- if i am able to pick up the babies i do- most of my female rats are pretty good- they are not too crazy when they have babies- thank goodness

3. depending on your rat. but i do leave the bedding for atleast 5-7days - i dont change cages etc- i find glass fish tank is fantastic- so much easier to keep clean etc- and you do not have to worry about babies getting stick between bars etc

anyway i hope this helps

we all need advice - otherwise how do we get experience

Answer 4

i dont think so as long as you dont touch the babies.  you can touch the sheet but not the babies. i think this is only with hamster but it could be with rats. best thing it not to touch the babies.

Answer 5

If they were purple, they may have had heart problems. If they're not there anymore then the mother probably ate them. It happens. Stop moving the babies, just leave the mother alone or she will get stressed out and may not look after them anymore. Leave them be for a week or more, there's no need for you to be handling them. All they need right now is for their mother to be feeding them and looking after them, and you need to give her the chance to do that properly.

Answer 6

1. ...what? Firstly, because they are born hairless, what might appear "purple" is just the natural skin colour for a brown or black rat. Otherwise, purple can mean a huge variety of problems, mostly those linked to blood circulation. They will appear darker if something is weakening their blood flow whether it be cold, weak heart, starvation, dehydration, parasites,  or a genetic illness. If they disappeared, it is possible that the mother ate them. If they were dying, the mother would kill them to put them out of their misery, in a way. Or it is also possible that the mother burried them deeper than you can see, and they are still stashed somewhere.

2. You need to be holding them as young as possible, while the mother allows you to. If she has no problems with you touching them, then you need to start handling them now for them to get used to people. If she doesn't like you to, don't stress her out, but let her know that you touching them is a good thing by giving her a treat everytime you do touch them.

3. This is fine, but you should keep some of the old bedding. Completely cleaning out the cage is very stressful to the mother. Keep a little bit of the old nesting material and put it back in the clean cage.

Maybe it's just the way you have phrased the question, but you do not sound like you are prepared to breed rats. Please do some more reading up. There is a lot of things that you can foolishly do wrong and cost the lives of the babies, so it's better to be prepared and kowledgable, right?

http://www.petratscanada.com/ratcare.htm...