Surrogate Mother

Question
QUESTION: I have 10 day old baby rats, who were orphaned on day 6. I hand fed and cared for them until yesterday, when I got a surrogate mother from a pet store. The babies are all still alive and seem healthy, they got a little bit of diarrhea but that seems to have gone away now. The surrogate mother had had a litter, and then nursed another litter that was a little bit younger before now becoming my new mama rat. I realize that this is a lot for her, but she was the only nursing female I could find, and I wanted to give the babies the best chance I could. Is this okay for her? My problem is that, while she is nursing the babies, she doesn't seem too interested in them other than that. I think she is cleaning them once in awhile, but not often. Should I continue to do the cleaning and stimulating myself?  Also I am not sure they are getting enough milk. Her most recent babies were just getting weaned, so I'm not sure she's lactating enough. The babies are nursing almost all the time, and seem hydrated and active but a couple of them are skinny enough that you can see their rib cages. Does them constantly nursing mean they're not getting milk? When we fed then it was only every few hours. Is there anything that I can do to help her keep lactating? I am feeding her a regular grain mix, pellets, spinach and other greens, apple, eggs, and a little baby food. I also have soy baby formula, from hand feeding the babies, should we give her that? And if the babies get too skinny should I continue giving them a little of the formula as well as nursing? It was giving them diarrhea before, but I might have been overfeeding them a little. Please help soon! I don't want to lose any babies.
ANSWER: It sounds like you are doing everything you can for this babies and as you have found out the older the baby the more luck you will have in getting them to survive :) Good on you.

Raising orphaned baby rats. There are some tips that you can try from these websites.
http://search.sympatico.msn.ca/results.aspx?q=raising+orphaned+baby+rats&FORM=MS

You are right however in assuming that this is a heavy burden on the surrogate mom and she too should get a big hug for what she is doing for you. Along with the excellent diet you already have her on, give her some tofu, all she wants, and this will give her the extra protein to build up her body and her milk. Baby food is also good for her. The bonus is that these are soft foods and may entice the babies to start eating solid food a little earlier to relieve some of her burden.

The babies will open their eyes at 14 days old and between then and 3 weeks old they will be tasting the same foods that their "mom" eats.

spazrats
http://spazrats.tripod.com

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

QUESTION: Hi again. Just a quick question. All my baby rats are still alive and well. We got a big mix in the colors of all the rats, and two of them are three colored dumbo female rex's. They have golden tan colored heads and darker brown markings on their backs (like hooded rats). I have tried to find information on tri-colored rats on the Internet but I haven't found anything at all. Is this rare? Also are the course hair and curly whiskers the only characteristics of a rex rat? Thank you.

Answer
I am so glad to hear that the babies are doing great. I was hoping you would get back to me :)

I had a litter of rats that really surprised me. Never dreamed that I would get Triamese Rats from this breeding.
Do your babies look like Dotti's Dreamsnotes?
http://spazrats.tripod.com/dreamnotes.html

Triamese may or may not keep their three separate colors of white, tan, and chocolate. Mine didn't, and their tan markings faded to make them look like Siamese as adults.

No, it is not common to have Triamese babies in a litter and no one that I know of is intentionally breeding for them. They just pop up in random breedings. It's a name given to pet rats and is not recognized by any rat association. Siamese breeders hate that we fancy this tri-colored rat because it is a major fault if it shows up in their lines.

See my link to Curiosity Rats which will tell you more about the Triamese.

The most distinguishing feature of the Rex is the curly coat and the curly whiskers. Otherwise they are the same as any other rat.

It sure sounds like you got an awesome litter of rat babies. CongRATulations are in order :)

spazrats
http://spazrats.tripod.com