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Rat mom squishing babies

21 17:16:40

Question
My rat had a very unplanned litter of babies 2 days ago.  She had 15 and we are down to 7 due to her squishing them.  She has her nest in one of those rolling balls that is tied to the side of her cage.  She has always used that as  her home and she filled it with bedding and shredded tissues and made a nice nest for her babies.  Last night after removing more obviously squished babies, I tried to give her a box with a door cut in it and put the babies and some bedding in there.  She went crazy, running around the cage trying to put bedding up on the bars of the cage and just generally freaking out.  I finally moved the babies back after this went on for an hour and after a while she settled back down to nurse.  This morning, I woke up to more squishied babies.  I am willing to hand feed them, but know that newborns do not generally do well with hand feeds.  I can't just sit by and let the remaining 7 be squished and I'm scared I'm going to go home tonight after work and have more dead babies.  Do you have any ideas?  I've exhausted mine and my friends.  I have raised pinkie squirrels and know the work they take and imagine pinkie rats are much the same.  Like I said though I'm willing to do it.  Do you think with what is going on that they would have more chance with me or mom?????  HELP! BTW they all have nice milk bands and she seems to be taking care of "business".....

Answer
Try to put the box in again but remove mom when you do this. When she starts to freak out, give her some soy milk or something she will love to calm her down and make her forget about it or she will kill the remaining pups.  I would not even consider trying to raise these pups as it is almost a death sentence for them. I rarely hear of them surviving under 2 wks of age. You would have to donate 24/7 to these pups to get them to survive.  That ball needs to come out though....righta way.