Breeding Pet Rats

"Hi, I'm Laura Fitzgerald and on behalf of Expert Village, I would like to talk to you about the care and maintenance of your pet rat. Now I would like to talk to you about breeding rats. This is my big male rat, Tar, as you can tell with his manly male parts, he is the boy rat. And this is my girl rat, Blondie, and as you can tell with her lack of male parts, she is a female rat. Now rats gestation, or time when they are pregnant, is about 21-23 days. Domestic rats have from 6 to a dozen babies. The younger the rat, the first litter of baby that she has may be less than that. Today I can show you that my little rat had four little babies, two black ones and two beige ones. It is always best to keep the momma rat secluded in her own home, away from daddy rat. So that she can have a hundred percent of her own alone time with the babies, because they drink milk for the entire time up to six weeks old. At six weeks old they will begin eating their own rat food. How they do that is they take the food away from momma, and they try it to see if they like it before they eat it, and they is how they learn which foods are good or not good to eat. And from that point on their eyes and ears will open, and they will basically be on their own. At that point mommy can then get pregnant again right away and start all over again having babies twenty one days later. Rats are very proferlific, and if you keep mommy and daddy together, they will constantly keep having babies. Which is not always a good thing because it shortens the life of momma and she kind of gets worn out. So it is always good if you do not want momma to have babies, to keep mommy and daddy in two separate cages. If you want multiple rats, get two girls or two boys, they have to grow up together and they will be just fine. If you have a boy and a girl, I will definitely guarantee you that you will definitely have babies. Rats live up to eighteen months to two years, so it is always good when you buy a rat to get your rat when they are young. So you will have a full life span from the age of six weeks to two years old. Rats are very intelligent and sweet, so even at this young age, if you pick them up and you play with them and if you pet them, they will get used to you and by the time their eyes open and they start running around, they will be your best friend. Look at this little one, already you can see her eyes start opening up, this little Blondie, at this age it is difficult to tell whether they are male or female, not until they are six weeks old where you can actually tell if they are a boy or girl. At that point when you can tell if it is a boy or a girl at six weeks old, you would want to separate them because at that point they can start breeding and making babies."