my six week old baby rats

Question
QUESTION: we have 11 rats, my sister and I, we have three cages and we keep our two oldest rats, KIITY  and BABY in a cage together, (they are both girls and BABY is the mother of our other baby rats) then we have the 3 six week old baby girl rats in another cage and we also have a very large cage with 6 boy rats in it, 3 six week olds and 3 older ones.we have been noticing in the younger boy rats that their bellies have become quite hardened. we dont know if this is a problem or not, since we have never raised young rats before. the girl six week olds do not have this hard belly and we are not sure if it will affect them. is it a problem?

ANSWER: Hi Hunter

are the boy rats going to the bathroom ok? IS the stool normal or hard?

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QUESTION: we cured the problem, sorry i never got the chance to read your reply. we were simply just feeding them way too much for their small size, we were feeding them too much because we also have the 3 larger boys in the cage. now we feed them seperate amounts. thanks so much.

ANSWER: Rats do not over eat.  Baby rats usually have fatter round bellies as this is just a part of baby hood.  Rats should always have food available to them. This does not make them fat. What makes them fat is feeding foods high in fats and proteins which not only create obesity but can cause fatty liver and also damage kidneys.

What are you feeding them?

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QUESTION: little brown chunks that are made for the rodents. i get them from Pet Supplies Plus. we thought that too about the never get fat thing. but we would sit and watch our rats eat for hours. five of them (Kitty, Tommy, Indee, Charlie and Oreo) we have seen start these reflexis after eating toomuch. it looks like theyre gagging when they do it. but im not sure if rats have gag reflexis or not.

Answer

Rats do not have gag reflexes are are unable to vomit as well.

Baby rats eat constantly. I have three 5 week old babies and they clean their bowls dry three times a day.  They eat a variety of foods and I follow a homemade diet from my Critter City website.  This gives them variety and I know the protein and fat content are low enough for them to be  healthy.  Have you seen my webpage ?