KMR is a great food for young pups and so is soy baby formula. Nothing else should be used. Do not use puppy formula either! I have had to raise quite a few young pups in my time, as well as hamster pups.
And most of the time, hairless DO NOT make good mothers. However, there are exceptions. The does will sometimes eat babies if they are not producing enough milk, but this can easily be avoided. If they have milk bands in the tummy they are getting plenty of milk. If you do not see a milk band for more than an hour I would step in and start feeding the babies yourselfs, and take them away from mother so you don't risk losing them. If you have another doe who is lactating you can put them in with her as well. Rats make great serogate mothers, and usually take in babies with no problems at all. I usually make up about two tablespoons of formula and soak a q-tip in that, then just drop a little bit on their mouth and they should lick it up. Once there is a visible milk band start on another baby. Make sure to keep them warm too! You don't want to use a human
heating pad as that can get too hot, so what I do is use a Tupperware container and line the bottom with hot water bottles, and then lay a thick baby blanket over that, and that should keep them warm for about an hour and a half. I also cover them up as well with a thin baby blakket, one that allows air flow.
5hairlessratties, at 3 to four weeks the babies will be starting to wean, and if the mother eats any she should be taken out immediately! This is NOT a good motherly attitude towards young, and any rat who cannot lactate or feed their young should not be bred again. If anyone wants to breed hairless I suggest looking for a good breeder who has established lactating lines.
But before you get worried, are you sure your rats are true hairless, and not double rex, or mock hairless? True hairless is a recessive gene, so mating a hairless to a furred rat would have all furred babies unless the dad carried hairless. If both parents are true hairless, all babies would be hairless. If they are both double rex, then you should have both double rex and possibly plain rex. If it's hairless to mock hairless breeding, you will get all double rex babies who carry the hairless gene, but may have a few true hairless is one of the parents carries.
Continue in another post so I don't lose this one........
