Hi. i am new here and one of my rats recently had a litter of babies. well, i was misinformed and the person told me that rats normally only have a litter of about 4-6 babies. my rat had 15 babies!!! i cannot keep all of them. my mom told me that if she had between 4 and 5, i could keep them all, but shes so mad because there is this many babies. someone else told me that there is something you can do called ?culling? them. what does that mean? she said its a way to get rid of some of the smaller, weaker babies or if you have a real big litter you can get rid of some of them. my dad told me to flush some of them down the commode like you do with a goldfish when it dies, and a guy i know told me to freeze them and feed them to our snake. she eats frozen ?jumbo? rats but that the ?pinkies? could be a ?snack? for her. i dont know if i am actually going to do any of these things but i do know that its also a big stress for this first time mom rat to have this many babies and also that i cant keep all these rats. i got her and her sister at a pet store, and i think that her sister is probably pregnant too. i sure hope she don?t have this many babies if she is because if she does my mom is going to kill me.

Okay, just to warn you, you're not going to get a favorable response here to the ideas of culling or feeding the babies to snakes.

Flushing rats down the commode is not a humane way to kill them.  Freezing them is also not humane.   Post to the adoptions board here and look for homes for the babies you will not be able to keep.  Start looking NOW, so that you can hopefully have homes lined up before the babies are ready to wean and separate.

Give the new mother as much food as she wants, and especially give her extra protein--kitten chow is a favorite around here.  Cooked egg is also good, and high in calories.

Good luck!

yeah but my mom told i had to something about the large number of babies now.

The only humane way to have animals killed is to bring them to a veterinarian to be put to sleep; also, pinkies are very difficult to euthanize.  Since they're so underdeveloped, they're resistant to the effects of gas and usually have to be gassed for a long time before they'll lose consciousness.

Nevertheless, home methods are not recommended or condoned for getting rid of rats, baby or adult.  Talk to your mom about this--given the cost of a vet visit, it might be easier to just raise the little ones until they're 3-4 weeks old, and adopt them out then.

Not only that but just to remind you and remind your MOM and DAD of this too while your thinking..........

THOU SHALL NOT KILL

I mean do you remember that?  

This means ALL LIVING THINGS.  These animals FEEL things like pain for example.  You are NOT going to get much support on this issue other to do the right thing and keep them till they are old enough to be weaned from mom.  Explain to your mother that these babies will do NOTHING but lay there and wait for mom to nurse them for a few weeks.  
If you do decide to risk going asking one of Gods rules the worst thing you can do is share it with this forum. Please keep it to yourself if you decide to do anything other than keep them till you find homes for them when they are over 5 weeks old.  

Damnit I wish I didnt read this post. In fact I am great at blocking things out of my mind so I will forget I ever read what I just did!!!!!   :huh:

If your dad absolutely insists on getting rid of the babies, then you are going to have to insist on taking them to a vet to do it; maybe that'll strengthen your case for not killing them.

Post to the adoptions board with your location (you might need to be a little more specific than just Arizona, since if you're close to a border, there may be someone in another state that could help), and see if anyone's willing to take the extra babies and hand-raise them--or maybe someone has a female that's already nursing babies and can try to introduce them.

I am sorry but your father confuses me.... what is the possible harm of letting these babies remain with their mother until they can be adopted out???

...Especially if you have a stated plan to do so. Why don't you work on this plan of finding homes (or a rescue) and present this as a plan of action to your dad. Write out your steps and present this as a lesson of responsibility.

I am assuming here that you didn't breed these rats but "adopted" two girls from the pet store and all of a suddden found the babies. and things are just out of hand now.

My first experience with rats back in 1982 was simmular except the clerk assured me I had two young males.... 10 days later I had 24 rats...

Laboratories routinely wean both rats and mice at 3 weeks (provided that they're of adequate weight--I know that's 10 grams for mice, not sure how much for rats, but they shouldn't look runted) with no ill effects.  Separating males and females should occur between 4 and 5 weeks by popular opinion, so you can always just wean and separate then and call it safe.

i told my parents that i would try and find homes for them starting now and also that i could probably have homes for them as soon as they are not nursing on their mom anymore and eating food but they said no. they said thats not soon enough and they dont care if all they do is lay around

i got my mom to read this and she said she will give me a few more weeks but i absolutely must find homes for all but the 5 that i can keep. also im going to use my money that i have saved up(about $200) and my older friend is going to bring me to the rat vet that she uses and im going to get the other female spayed. i know that is also killing the babies, but i think that might be better than what my dad would do, and also would be better if she doesnt have any babies.

do you think that $200 is enough to have a female spayed. i have no idea how much it would cost but tommorow morning i am going to call the vet and see how much it is and also make an appointment. im home schooled, so i can do it at any time.
what does kudos mean.

Hi!
Ok, let me get that straight: your parents allow you to have rats, tell you to keep a few but they don't want to take on the whole responsibility? I'm sorry, but you are only 14 and you seem to be very mature for your age. Killing any animal just because there are too many of them there... In which century and in which civilization do we live? We are civilized people, aren't we? Country people might treat (especially) rats differently, but appearantly, your parents agreed that you could keep rats as pets. Well, didn't they get any form of information BEFORE they got you the rats? Right, they are YOUR pets, but you are only 14 thus they should double check any kind of information you get. Nothing against you, no, no, not at all. I admire your brain capacity at such a young age. How did you find this forum? By yourself? All the rat information... As I understand the rats are solely your responsibility. I don't agree with this. You know, rats can be very expensive pets, your parents should know this. Just as an example I love to give people: my Dante (2 years and 2 months old) has never been sick, but he was neutered. All in all, since I have had him, he cost me about $200 in vet bills. My Vino (he passed on three weeks ago, he wasn't even two years old) was very sick, in total he cost me around $ 1500. Now, you can get lucky and have very healthy rats, let's all knock on wood, but if you don't ... What will your parents do then? Kill the rat, because for $50, you can get 10 of them?! Are they willing to pay for vet bills? I just don't understand how parents can consider teaching their kid to kill in order to get rid of someTHING. My parents are from a different culture, a culture that thinks that humans dominate animals and therefore it is perfectly fine to kill and to be rough with animals. I understand the upbringing they had, and that is why I started to have rats when I was living all by myself, had enough money for myself and other creatures entering my life.
Again, you appear to be very, very intelligent and warm hearted. At your age, you believe in everything your parents say and do, and that is fine, but in this case, YOUR heart is right. True, so many babies is too many to keep. But it is not an option to kill some of the babies. I'm sure people will read your offer on the adoption site and they will help out. I hope...
$200 should be plenty for spaying your other girl. It shouldn't even be that much. For a neutering, I paid $70 per rat. I think spaying is more expensive though. Gosh, that you are so smart and think about that! And you pay it by yourself! I have a lot of respect for you!
Liza

If I belittled you, I apologize. I didn't mean to. I just wanted to get my point across how much I admire you for your brains!

Tell your parents its also considered CRUELTY TO ANIMALS to want to kill them.  That is ILLEGAL in every state.  I doubt they would want to have the humane society knocking on their door.  They may think its OK because its JUST A RAT but its NOT OK.
I am sorry to come down on you. I feel for you I really do. It must be terrible to have parents that would want to kill innocent animals. That is total cruelty to animals PERIOD.

the vet we are going to use has spayed my friends 2 rats and she has also neutered one of them. i called them this morning and i have an appointment tommorow morning to bring her in. shes not fat yet so i dont know how far along shes pregnant but my girl that had the babies didnt show until the morning that she had the babies.
thanks everyone for the information and the help. my mom told my dad to just keep his mouth shut about the whole situation and that she would handle it. my mom is a lot nicer than my dad so i hope to 'win her over' and show her how great the ratties are.