nursing babies

Question
Hi there!
I've been a rat owner for a few years now, love them! awesome pets! it started with my first rat 'Ratboy', best rat ive ever know, sooo smart he scared me a times lol, i loved him so much i wanted to keep his lines going, so i succesfully breed him and keep 2 of his male offspring 'Tom and Jerry', this fall both Tom and Jerry looked like thier time may be getting close, so i introduced them to a new female, they were together for about a month, but they both passed away (sooo sad), i thought Ratboys line was done, but low and behold about 2 weeks after my last male passed (Jerry), she gave birth! i was soo excited! but here lies my problem, the new mother wont nurse or look after the babies, 5 have died already, there is still 7 left alive, the only solution i came up with is i went to my local pet store and bought a female rat which they have breed many times, so far she has ignored the babies, but she also looks very pregnent herself, is she still able to nurse even tho she is pregnent? i have also introduced both the new rat and the original mother, they seem to get along very well. i was hoping that between the 2 of them that they may nurse the babies, but not looking good so far. Any advice you could give me would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks so much!
Mike

Answer
Mike;
Sorry to hear your mama won't nurse her litter. Unfortunately, that happens, too often really. The problem is, a surrogate mother can only and will only nurse babies when she has a litter herself - because thats the only time she'll lactate. Although you bought a doe who has been bred several times and appears to be pregnant, she won't begin producing milk until HER litter is born. If you can keep the babies alive until then there's a very, very good chance she'll care for the other rat's infants. I'd recommend looking up care for infant rats (it can be rather detailed otherwise I'd explain it all here), and try to keep them going yourself.

Good luck!