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[Helikaon]

Originally Posted by MrsSnakes4me2

Thankyou all very much for the tips.

Helikaon, do you separate your 'growers' into male & female cages? Otherwise they would all be into each other at 6 weeks wouldnt they?

They have a little house and the female eats constantly it seems. Could it be that she is pregnant already or is that a standard appetite for rats. The male seems to sleep more than he eats.

I have a standard rat food mix of pellets, seeds and some kind of chaff mixture. Do you recommend giving them raw vegies or fruit as well?

in the grower cage i currently just chuck both sexes in as i will be keeping most of the females for breeding anyway bu my young ones do not get pregnant at the common 6 week age they actually grow quite large before getting pregnant. i am not a fan of that seed and chaff mixture as it does not do their teeth any good and is a major cause of tooth problems in rabbits guinea pigs and rats. yes fresh fruit and veggies is good. yeah the males are pretty lazy, though with lots of stimulus they will become more active. the other method mentioned about in a hutch works well as well, i just find this way it allows me to have more control over my rats and so i can give the mothers breaks between pregnancies as they can pop out new babies before the old babies have even been weaned properly. but yeah its really not hard.