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Originally Posted by Fangs Welcome olivaceus71 and great first post.
Your post raised two questions for me.
1.how do you prevent mothers from getting milk fever?leave 1 or 2 pups with her?If so for how long?
2.What brand of cubes do you recommend for feeding?
cheers |
Hey Fangs
good to see someone else up at this hour
I used to take all the babies but 5 from the mothers as soon as they
were born, now I leave them with all of them at least for a few days, unless they are looking a bit worn out and then I will take all of the babies from the mother. The only female rats I encountered with this problem were the labbies and it could be a mixture of heat/poor quality feed. I would just make sure your mothers are old enough and big enough to cope with a litter of babies.
Would also say after suffering mastitis years ago with one of my daughters it is probably the luck of the draw, you/or rats are just prone to it. (cannot believe I just compared myself to a lactating rodent)
I did euthanaise a few rats after one of our scorchers, when I thought it had brain damage and they were swaying from side to side, though I came across some info a few weeks back
that said pink eyed rodents have poorer eyesight and sway to focuss(don't know if I believe that one or not
I used to use dnr cubes but now use gordons which although are quite a bit dearer, around $20 for 16kgs the rats seem alot fatter and happier. Though I do go through around 2 bags a week, for the average keeper they would last a few months at least. They have a factory down at Yanderra.
As with all of my managerie, I keep my rodents in top condition and although I have a heap, I do have my favourites, and am a wuss when they die (unless of course it is at my hands, co2). My 5 year old handles feeding the herps rodents as she has been doing it her whole life, my 9 year old however handled it alot better when they came straight from the shop.
hope I answered your question
cheers
