Handling babies

Question
I have a couple more questions - thank you so much for answering my last ones about my Oops babies!

I have a couple more specific questions, now that all SEVEN (missed one in the first count!) babies are coming along! My mama rat is being a champion mother - SO proud of her - and I followed your advice on feeding her. She has allowed me to handle her babies since day one, giving obvious "ok, now you're done" signs when she wanted me to leave them be. She's always been so matter of fact and she doesn't seem to mind my handling them to check their milk bands (And that's really all I've done, except to take a couple of pictures :-) ), but in talking to others about this I have been warned against it; they tell me I'm going to peek in on them and find a few missing one day. How likely is it that she'll actually eat her babies just because I'm touching them? Even thoguh she seems alright with me, could she actually be stressing out to that point? They're about a week old now, and are all still present and accounted for, but *I'm* stressing out now. So many people are telling me this that there must be some truth behind it. She's done such a great job this week with them and I don't want to discourage her from caring for them!

Another question I have is on housing; the babies were born in her big cage - I had miscounted the days and hadn't moved her into the smaller cage in time. I thought I'd leave it in the big cage and see if she moved the babies to it on her own. If she doesn't take a liking to it, should I move them all in there regardless? I'm worried they might be able to squeeze through the bars of their big cage once they start running around! If we get past the danger of her eating them only to lose them through the cage bars we'd be in a bad way. However, I'm equally worried that making the move myself will cause her much stress. Would it be better to simply move the big cage into the babyratproofed bathroom and see what happens?

I'll tell you what, if she wasn't such a good mama, I'd just be a mess. At least one of us is keeping her cool!

Thanks in advance!

~Dani

Answer
Hi Dani;
What people are telling you (about her eating her young) is VERY rare. I've only had one doe flip out and eat her young, and it was the very first day I handled them - not after I'd been handling them. Your doe sounds fine. Also, this is mostly true with hamsters. Hamsters are already pretty much useless but they're tempermental mothers to boot -- touch their kids and they're history.. they'll eat them or suffocate them trying to "protect" them in their cheeks. Rats are too smart for that sort of behavior. Guaranteed, you're fine, keep doing what you're doing.

If a baby fails to thrive and then dies on its own, don't be surprised if Mom "cleans up".. that's what they do.

Once the babies start toddling (opening their eyes and wiggling more), THEN I'd move them. At this point, let her be. They won't get away from her for too long. Just keep counting down to 14 days.. and as soon as you have eye peepers.. put them in a baby-proof cage!