Starving baby rats?

Question

I had a both my rats have litters of both 17 and 21 babies. 32 survived. Now at 2 weeks old, a few of them seem to be very small and starving while the others are big and chubby. How can i get the moms to feed them, or what would I give them so they have a chance at survival?

Answer 1

With litters that large, typically you will have to rotate the babies.

Take the chubbier ones out and put them in a tank with a heating pad under half of the cage.

Leave the small ones in with the moms and wait to see if the moms will feed them.  Don't leave the other ones out of the cage for too long, because they are too young and need to be fed frequently.

Hand feeding is very difficult and often fails.

Good luck.

Answer 2

unfortunately,this is a normal happening on rat birth.rats give birth to so many litter that the mother can barely even have time for all of them.the other rats are bound to be weaker than the others as they do not get the right nutrition form the mother.they are called "runts" and are usually the ones who will die.i'm sorry.

but you may do something to make things better.i presume at two weeks old,they are old enough to eat by themselves,right?so i suggest you separate the unts from the others and feed them by yourself.give them a little more food than the others for faster recovery.

take the weakest ones to the vet to make sure.

i hope i helped!

Answer 3

well this is weird but take them and you can get baby milk or cat milk take a eye dropper to the little tiny mouths and drop the milk in fill it up and each heave per baby do this at least 5-10 times a day and please keep up with it

Answer 4

When the chubby ones are eating carefully grab the thin ones and feed them in your own .

You gotta be slow and careful.

Answer 5

Ask your local vet what you can do to help the mother feed the babies

Good luck

Answer 6

ask your vet and  read up on it in books for orphaned rats and by special rat milk