Underweight babies

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Annbritt

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 10, 2007
Messages
131
Location
Aalborg - Denmark
I have this friend, who breeds rats too.
She has this big problem, that all her babies are way to small when she sends them out of her home.
I should have a girl from her, 5 weeks and 42 grams, and it was supposed to be the bigger one of the litter.
She uses the same food as I do, and I have never had any problems with small babies.
She use baby food and kitten milk.
What else could she feed the little ones to make them grow bigger?
Any idea to what she might be doing wrong?
It is not just one litter, but all of her litters. I think she has had about 12 litters, where the babies were much to small.
 
Is mommy on extra protein? She needs the extra food to supplement the babies through her milk. Get mom on good healthy, higher fat and protein foods like eggs, chicken, kitten food. This will make mom stronger and willing to feed her babies more.
For the babies, I would get them a meal replacement drink, in US and Canada, that would be Boost or Ensure.
 
Hi, I saw that you posted on the other forum :) I don't know much about babies but I wanted to tell you what Ensure was :D Ensure is a brand of meal replacement shakes that come in flavours such as chocolate, strawberry and vanilla (sometimes banana but that's rare these days) Per 1 8oz bottle it has 250 calories and 9g of protein, here is a link to their website: http://ensure.com/products/index.aspx Plus you can make recipes with it. Good luck with the babies
:baby:
 
No, we deffinately don't have Ensure or Boost in Denmark :(

But I'll tell her to give mom and the babies a lot of extra protein, maybe it will help.
 
How long has she been breeding? How is the health of the lines otherwise? How are the weights/size of the rats once they are full grown? Do they catch up or would you say they are undersized in general? Are all these rats out of the same lines?
 
They are all out of different lines. They never catch up to normal sized rats, but keep being small. She has not been breeding for very long, maybe 9 months or so.

Here's a picture of one of the babies in its new home:
JungleRot1.jpg

37 grams, and that's after it has gained some weight in the new home.
I haven't heard there should be anything wrong with the health of the lines she used, though most of them are petstores. But when the babies are never really ill when they get out in their new homes, they are just underweight.
 
I'm not sure which to address first here, but with the fancy being so new over there and pet store lines being used, breeders should really consider slowing down and not breeding 12 litters in their first 9 months or so of breeding, especially when the lines are NOT known and 9 months hardly gives you any time to see what develops from the offspring of these pairings. (I'm assuming she is using the same bucks more than once which means she could be propagating unhealthy traits that have yet to show themselves).

The pup pictured has very poor muscle mass. The splayed back leg, distended belly and dip in the back are all severe symptoms of malnourishment. I would show her some photographs of healthy pups at the same age and explain to her how they should look.
 
We have already tried that, but she can't get her pups to look like the healthy ones in the picture.

The only male she has used more than once, was a male with a somewhat long pedigree. I think she made 3 litters out of him, and I got 2 pups out of one of the litters, that was a little bigger than the ones she has made recently.
 
Maybe a silly question.... but you mentioned giving baby food and kitten milk.

She is weaning the pups onto a complete rat diet when they start eating right? Not giving baby food and milk only....
 
My personal oppinion - something is horrible wrong and the breeder is not talking the truth, because if she did what she says she does, the babies wouldn't be that small (I've helped the breeder with kitten-milk-replacement to give to mum, and small other things, but nothing helps). The babies are of fine health and don't get ill, but they stay small.
 
Lise: She says she is giving them proper rat food when they start eating themselves.

I just got a message from her today, that she is considering to stop breeding. But I don't think she will unfortunately.
 
Bati said:
My personal oppinion - something is horrible wrong and the breeder is not talking the truth, because if she did what she says she does, the babies wouldn't be that small (I've helped the breeder with kitten-milk-replacement to give to mum, and small other things, but nothing helps). The babies are of fine health and don't get ill, but they stay small.

Ahh so she's a "friend" rather than a friend. :roll:
 
I don't know much about rat breeding but what I do know about genetics and commen sense is this.

Obviously there is something not right with her rats. They shouldn't be that stunted in growth. This could lead to potential problems later in life for them and that's not fair. She needs to stop breeding the rats she has and start fresh with new rats (if she's bound and determined to breed). New mother and father. I think if she doesn't it could get worse and worse.

I don't intend to be mean but seriously that's not healthy. Think of the rats sake!!
 
lilspaz68 said:
Bati said:
My personal oppinion - something is horrible wrong and the breeder is not talking the truth, because if she did what she says she does, the babies wouldn't be that small (I've helped the breeder with kitten-milk-replacement to give to mum, and small other things, but nothing helps). The babies are of fine health and don't get ill, but they stay small.

Ahh so she's a "friend" rather than a friend. :roll:

Yes, well rather someone we know and are trying to help, than a friend.

I got my rat home from her today, Bati has been taking care of her for a week now and trying to get her in better shape. Still, she is 6½ weeks old and 63 grams, and she was supposed to be the bigger one of the litter:
kumalogo.jpg

At least she doesn't look unhealthy, she is just so small. She is even smaller than my gerbils.
The father of this girl was a male I borrowed her, and he is from a good line dating possibly 17 years back in some places of his pedigree, so I know there was nothing wrong with his genes that could cause the babies to be so small. There has to be another reason.
 
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