Male Rat Fertility

[hhw]

How old does a male rat generally have to be to be a reliable breeder? I currently have 3 males; 2 are a high quality lab line and 1 is a normal. However, so far only the normal has fathered any litters. The lab males are around 3 months old I'm guessing, so they've definitely been sexually mature for more than 3 weeks, but so far nothing.

I've heard that males can take up to 6 months before they'll breed for you reliably? I just wanted to see what other people's experiences are in this area.

P.S. I'm now on litter #5, and litter #2 is currently being fed off. Woohoo!!! Hopefully, I'll soon be able to produce enough to have some leftover in the freezer. I just want to get my lab lines going though... My 2 lab males are already much bigger than the normal male, and I have a feeling that the line is high yield.

[Mark]

I've never found that my males won't breed for me reliably. I set up a new bin I use small rats and when the females are ready to breed the male is fine and I've never had fertility problems. I hope you have luck with your labs. I've preety well either killed or crossed my labs with my best normal producers because I found lab to lab they are crappy producers and have a tendency to bite their young (at least for me). I've found they do cross well with normals and my best procers are huge lab male with 3 small normal females.

Good luck with your breeding