Scared momma rat

I haven't made a post her in a while so I thought I'd share my newly born babies here. I have an odd situation with the mom so I thought I'd get some opinions before posting them.

She was a feeder rescue from a kijiji listing I posted a few weeks ago. So far she's the only pregnant one out of the four girls. The others don't look pregnant and their weight hasn't shown pregnancy either. Unfortunately the mommy is the most fearful one. She doesn't like being alone and is very nervous right now. I have her nursery cage on top of her groups cage. When I opened her cage to check on her she wanted to go back to her group.

When shes with her group she's social, she plays takes food and is pretty normal. When she's alone she is extremely scared and hides. When I give her some daily out time should I let her go home for an hour? She lives with an extremely friendly bunch they are all young and sweet. I don't think any of them will hurt her or anything but I've never done this with other moms. I don't want her getting confused going between two cages.

She was feeding her babies a while ago but she wants out right now. What do you guys think? Should I just let her play with her friends? Do you think it's a bad idea to give her 30 mins to an hour in her old cage daily?

I don't know anything about this, but I would suggest that if there is a way to give her out time and still let her have access to the nursery cage if she wants to go back in would be the way to go. I don't know how long they can be away from the little babies. Do they have to keep them warm? I didn't take my momma out for very long, but she didn't want to be away from them either. Guess my answer isn't really any help.

I've never had a rat that wanted to stay out more then 25-30 minutes. But I think an hour is max? She wants to be with the babies but she also wants to be with her cagemates and she can't be with both at once.

Absolutely out her back with her old group. We usually recommend out time of an hour or so every day for Moms with younger litters. Keeping her familiar with her old group is important and if Out time (or maybe Away time we'll call it) is back in the cage with her former cagemates where she is happy that's fine. Later on let them have Out time together. Makes it easy to reintroduce.

Great I'm going to do that then. I let her play wirh them yesterday but she wanted in the cagw. I'll just leave the cage open for them today.

minnieflower said:

Great I'm going to do that then. I let her play wirh them yesterday but she wanted in the cagw. I'll just leave the cage open for them today.

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Be careful leaving a rat mom with an open door to the maternity cage. Rat mom's have an instinct to relocate their babies and once they do that it can be very difficult to find them in time, especially if they are really young. I had forgotten this myself recently and was forcibly reminded when Siobhan relocated 2 of her babies to a high shelf and they fell. They both survived but my heart almost stopped. The male now Houdini, is really a miracle to survive at all. So be careful with those mommy instincts.

Oh no I was planning on moving the maternity cage and leaving her old cage open. So she can free roam but still go home if she wants. I'm gonna let her out when I'm cleaning her baby cage.