How to care for newborn rats

Question
QUESTION: A week ago I purchased 8 week old 2 female rats from my local pet store. When I brought them home they have been both timid and aggressive towards anyone tries to socialize with them. They shy away from human hands and are extremely reluctant to be stroked and handled. However, last night discovered that one of the rats had given birth to a litter of 3 ratlets and we now think that the other may be pregnant too.
Although not a stranger to owning rats, the prospect of caring for newborns had terrified us as we have read so much conflicting advice in books and on the Internet. The ratlets are now roughly 24 hours old, how should we proceed? Because the mother was pregnant when we had her we don't want her to continue being aggressive (she seems to have now conquered her timidity), but how do we make both rats believe we mean no harm? And how do we rear the new little ratties? Any advice you can offer would be hugely helpful to an inexperienced owner of newborns!

ANSWER: Hi!!

I do believe mom rat will stop being so aggressive as time goes by. The important thing is that they have milk in their bellies. You will need to handle them every single day in order to get them to be socialized or they will be super shy as well and really almost as scared as wild rats are.

They need to be in a cage they cannot escape from as they grow older.  Their eyes wont open till they are around 2 weeks old and after that, they begin to move around more and leave the nest.
You need to remove the boys from the girls by 4.5 weeks of age since they can get both mom and their sisters pregnant.  

Feed mom some soy milk or soy baby formula, scrambled eggs, beef livers, baked chicken breast, brown rice....baby food.....this will really help her keep up the milk production. Turn the babies over and check to be sure they have what is referred to as "milk band" in their tummies. Their skin is transparent so you can actually see their bellies full of milk. It reminds me of a little tiny light bulb inside their tummies.

DO NOT pick mom up yet, but talk to her gently each day and try to offer her a treat like a cheerio or some other piece of cereal.

Here is a great link to see the babies as they grow and learn a bit about them as they grow.

http://ratguide.com/breeding/baby_development/birth_to_weaning.php

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you so much for replying so quickly and providing us with really clear and understandable information. It has really calmed us down a lot!!

Since the last question I asked, our other rat has given birth to 6 babies, giving us a total of 9 baby rats and 2 adult rats sharing a cage. Is it advisable to have 2 litters in the same cage? As yet they are not scrapping or being aggressive to each other, in fact the first of the pair to give birth has almost taken on a 'caretaker' role to all of the babies and regularly checks on both litters. We have noticed though that one of the 'caretaker' mum does occasionally steal the bedding material from the other nest but has not taken anything from the nest itself. It has not caused any arguments, but should the litters be separated or can they remain together?

Also, because of the amount of rats in the cage (we have a Slavic Freddy cage) will there come a time (apart from separating males and females) where we will need to divide the group for their own well being, and if so at roughly what age should this happen? We were told that our cage can accommodate 4 adult rats, but at the moment there are 11 rats sharing it (albeit, 2 large rats and 9 immobile baby rats). We want to do the best for all of them and don't want to leave them in an environment that is unhealthy.

Once again, all your advice is greatly appreciated.

ANSWER: How are things going for everyone?

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Things are going really well, as it turns out we miscounted the babies and have a grand total of 10 ratlets! But both of the mums and all the babies are thriving, and we're just taking things one day at a time. We have held the babies a few times but not regularly as the mums can get distressed quickly if they can't get to their little ones. The babies are growing at such a fast pace, every day they seem more and more like proper little rats. Their markings are now very clear and they all have a thin soft fur growing. They are showing an awareness of their surroundings and are lifting their heads to sniff out any new smells even though they can't see or hear yet. Its all so wonderful to watch!

We are concerned however, about when the time comes to separate them. We are hoping to keep all of the babies (in cages of separate sexes of course) but want to know if the mums will still be protective of their offspring if they are all kept with the 2 mums in their cage. Do the mums lose the maternal bond and adopt a 'pack' mentality instead? Although the mums are becoming more receptive to humans now that they have given birth we don't want them to continue trying and keep their babies away from us.

Many thanks.

Answer
That is great news that they are all doing so well.

A few things: once the babies eyes are open, it is very important you begin to handle them as much as possible or they will be very skittish and untrusting all by instinct.  What you can do is lure mother away and put her in another cage for a bit and play with the pups.

As for when they are finally on their own, yo can divide them up into small groups and mom will lose her protective nature, although rats in gemeral bond strongly with their cagemates regardless if they are blood related or not.  Mom will start to push the pups away more as they get older in order to start to wean them herself but they will continue to bug her to nurse for weeks so you need to step in when they are 4 weeks old.  The males need removed at 4.5 weeks old.  Introduce them to solid foods around 3 weeks of age but they will wander to the food bowl on their own when ready anyhow. Mother nature arranges all of this stuff, its pretty neat to observe.  I suggest to soak the rat blocks in warm water to soften them up until they are at least 6 weeks old, but I also make a rat mix of my own (see my page on proper diet for rats) no garbage seed  mixes pet stores push to the unknowing public.  I also keep down peas and carrots, both cooked.  I usually use canned and rinse very well to remove sodium etc... the babies will eat the soft veggies easy.  Mom also teaches them to use the water bottle as well but if you see a pup not catching on, simply apply a dab of jelly on the nipple and this will get little tongues waggin!

When the girls are around 5 weeks, remove them from mom for at least a day or two to break the nursing cycle and to get moms milk to dry up.  By this time mom is pushing them away from her more to break the weaning cycle too.   I would try to limit the cage of boys to just 3 per cage and girls, no more than 6, but the cage must be HUGE if you are going to have 6 girls in it to avoid problems with too much ammonia from urine etc...and the more rats you have, the stronger the ammonia and this is not really good for their lungs at all and can encourage mycoplasmosis pulmonis to start causing problems.

Check my website for info on diet and anything else you need to know about. I dont have a section on babies though, which I think I will make.  Do you know how to sex the babies?